I guess each of us have our own needs and experiences with AOL. I will admit, people like my brother, who design and maintain web pages or use the net for business find other ISPs more practical. I however use it for more personal needs and information and find it pretty good for my email and communicating with friends, many of whom are on AOL etc. I also find AOL very adequate for keeping up on news keeping in touch with old classmates and the research that I do. I guess we will have to differ on our impressions of it's practicality and usefulness.

Further, you said,"Please understand I did not say AOL users suck, I said AOL sucks, and in my opinion, it does!" I understand you didn't make a personal statement and I am glad YOU didn't. However it is a common occourance on USENET and other places that people do get rather personal about their criticisms about AOL and AOL users. An example of what I am referring to is alt.vacations.las-vegas, where I have routinely been flamed about not being able to get all the messages and responses to my posts. Some people get some sick pleasure out of knocking down AOL subscribers for their choices and attacking AOL as the problem. I contacted AOL about my problems and could not get a satisfactory CS response. For about 6 months I got a run around until a fellow AOL member wrote me on the board to check my preferences. Sure enough I was filtering out all posts over 500 words and that is why I was not getting the posts. Now that I have fixed that problem I have had no problems. As you say, AOL can be quirky but when you figure those quirks out it isn't that bad, Now if only I can get AOL to fix the problem where I loose my NewsGroup reader when I get bumped and loose any posts I am reading and writing I will be in great shape.

Respectful regards,

Bill