Tom,
Arley and I do similar things, but I like messages in "thread" sequence, so
my command string is
op;sm n;s;rtn
instead of Arley's
op;sm n;s;rn
"RTN" tends to result in replies to messages being close to the original, which
makes reading and (offline) editing somewhat easier.
My defaults are to Never stop, so I sometimes must do the reverse:
op;sm a;s;ri nnnnn
so I can read an individual message and reply to it online.
But my most common command sequence is
RT nnnn ONLY;RT mmmm ONLY . . .
which reads message nnnn and all replies, the reads message mmmm and all its
replies, _but_ reads no other messages. This is how I selectively read only
message threads of interest without having to read all messages (difficult
and/or expensive in busy Forums) or individually read every message discussing
a topic of interest.