If'n you look on your home page, you will notice that status updates have a new & better UI. You can now see the in-reply-to and replies to a give status update inline, without having to go to another page. We're only partway done (there are a few quirks: the permalink page has not been redesigned, you can only go one level "up" and not follow a chain all the way back yet, the new style non-fuzzy heads are not yet used on the "friends online" list, etc.) but most of those will get ironed out soon.