Yeah, I'm hesitant about commenting on old non-fic posts (though I say over and over that I get comments e-mailed and people are more than welcome to comment on anything I've ever posted regardless of how long ago) but I don't feel like there should be any sort of statute of limitations on commenting on old fic. (Obviously with the caveat I mentioned somewhere else about how critting something old can be counter-/non-productive if the writer has improved since then.) I like your analogy -- and is why this idea is so weird to me (though I can understand it on some levels) since I'm an English major and we're *always* talking about texts.

[And I read it as "not talk" :) ]