I don't think we have nearly enough of these going on. They've shown to be wonderful for random interactions, they're good for the "every-day" sort of situations that'd happen all the time in a setting that's usually calm as this one, and they can be spiced up with events when needed.
I think if we try and make it so that we more-or-less always have at least one big log going on, it'd also make them a lot less intimidating, since then people won't feel they have to spam absolutely all threads from it.