happen to agree that they contain much knowledge - they aren't pure knowledge... Enough that it makes sense to want debate to continue from that level, rather than from scratch.

Agreed.

Besides, if you manage to read a sequence, understand it, and still disagree, that means your reply is likely to be interesting and highly upvoted.

I emphatically agree with you there, as well; but by making this site more "phygvfu", we risk losing this capability.

so I think an expectation of having read Map and Territory and Mysterious Answers would be useful.

I agree that these are very useful concepts in general, but I still maintain that it's best to provide the links to these posts in context, as opposed to simply locking out anyone who hadn't read them -- which is what nyan_sandwich seems to be suggesting.