@Gargron my first reaction was to quote post.

In my short time on Mastodon vs twitter, NOT having quote posts has led to more direct interactions with the OP, and less knee-jerk reactions to posts.

Maybe quote posts could be a *type of reply*? A button that says “include original post”? Might be some benefits to that as well, i.e. in a reply to a megathread, you could quote a specific status. Or even another reply. All while in the original context.