True, what you are proposing is essentially a very fancy reply button, but I wonder if people will be confused by the fact that they’re clicking a fake “input box” and then our editor overlay pops up. I think they’ll wonder why there is an overlay editor instead of typing directly on the page… the resulting UI would be a bit odd IMO… does “your” fake placeholder post disappear once you click and the overlay editor arrives? Does that fake placeholder post stick around in the topic? Does it update in real time as you type in the overlay editor? If so, that would be three places that your typing would be mirrored:
- in the editor
- in the editor preview pane
- in the fake placeholder post
… one way to measure that potential confusion is to try a theme component.
Sure, it’s off topic here, but that does make sense.