Respectfully, I think you are over-thinking it. Hits and eyeballs make forums more successful and increase the value of a forum. If the Macks ever sell this place, it will be more valuable with more users and posts, not everything condensed down as far as possible.
My goal with the Travel thread (which I believe prompted this thread) was to find good deals and eventually get a meetup together and I think that it would have taken off. We have high net worth individuals who are good at spotting deals and I don't think they will think to post Travel deals individually in the "non-Lego Deals" section...too tedious to find the section, then create a thread.
I've posted deals here and helped this forum for 2 years. That travel thread was gonna be gold. You are limiting the freedom of the members you count on to make this forum work.