Masterpiece, since as you've pointed out there is no way that site visits benefit the forum I think it's unfair to say that it's a page-click generating scheme; the reason that some people would like for this to be turned off is because if posts are emailed out automatically, there are copies of posts which are (for legitimate and good reasons) later deleted or amended. If someone posts something, thinks better of it and deletes it before anyone sees, but a copy is emailed out, then they actually have lost the ability to delete. Equally, if mods delete posts because they break the rules, the post is still recorded elsewhere.