You think? Look here....
http://bushcraftusa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21172
The first post has a half screen sized list of names and pretty much every post in the thread has a sub-post thanking that too.
Are peoples ego's really so fragile that they need this? Thank you ....no thank you ....no really, thank you. Can I thank you too ...I'm Spartacus!
I agree that the section showing the thanks takes up space. But the point is....think just how much space would have been taken up if each of those names had been an individual post instead. Even if that post had been nothing more than, "Thank you" or "+1" it would have been an entire 4 or 5 pages of posts instead. Posts that added nothing to the thread.