I must admit, I haven't read the thread mentioned, and I am sure
Carsten's point was correct, but orgmode is more and more used for
non-structure tasks. As an example I see the whole field of reproductive
research and scientific paper writing, which, in my opinion, has many
more elements than structure. Another example are html emails (like them
or not - I also dislike them) which people compose in org, or org as a
LaTeX frontend.
Exporting, i.e. typesetting and sharing, becomes much more important
these days and possibly as important as the structure.
In a nutshell: I agree with Titus' point and also would love to have
alphabetical bullets.