[Idea] To better handle replies to promote discussion.

So, I am of the opinion that if this forum is going to be something, it needs to have focus on where discussion is happening, not circle jerking around upvoted posts

With this in mind, to accomplish fixing one of reddit's biggest problems, I have a couple of solutions that I feel need to work in tandem on some level.

1. Change the default sort to Recent/Recent Activity. - The Idea here is to give every reply a chance at being seen. Recent would help, at least it would halt circle jerking around the most upvoted content, but it would make it hard to find the discussions.
   My suggestion would be to add a new sort for the Default, that sorts replies by activity, whether that be replies, upvotes, or both. This would allow the active discussions to stay on top, while new posts have a shot at being seen.

2. Only Show replies for topics when you can reply to them - This is an idea I had. The concept is to make every reply feel like it's own "mini-topic" within the thread. If you go to the news section, the most replied to things will have a "click to see X amount replies" button to prevent 1 reply from taking over the page.
   My idea is to do this at the base level for replies to a topic, but also take it a step further: In order to reply to a reply, you must click that expand button. The expand button would only expand the next level of replies, replies to those replies would still be hidden under a second expand button. If you wanted to reply to one of these newly revealed replies, you would have to click it's expand button, and so on and so forth. This should allow for the discussion to fold out from there.