Here I was, working on the quick reply button... At first I decided that the 'visibility' property of CSS2 was the way to go. It worked great, except that when the layer was hidden, its real estate was not reused.
I am now using the 'display' property with the values 'block' and 'none'.
Nope, it could be smaller. I still don't know if I want it smaller in the default templates or not.
Note that you can make it smaller in your own install by modifying the template.
Chris, perhaps you could make the post box smaller.. and add a little more to the quick reply.. such as emoticons, and other post options such as the bb code buttons or something?
This world is not perfect. That is what makes it beautiful.