We use this capability fairly extensively in our current software today and I lean in your direction here. Most of these threads that users create for “support” are really just a means to complain at the staff that their post got removed or whatever. There are some legitimate uses though where users are trying to report a history of harassment by someone else or other topics that require some actual discussion.
There are times where some delicate interaction is needed but it is way overkill to try bolting on a ticket system. This kind of thing will have to move to private messages I think once we migrate to Discourse, but that is going to be annoying since these topics will need to have the entire staff added so everyone is on the same page.