No, there are a lot of things that you do, that I find silly, but they still make sense, it's the idea that I find silly.
I do not understand why you mention /echo's switches trying to argue /echo is better than /aline.
This feature is not about /echo vs /aline, that would be misunderstanding the suggestion.
If you followed the thread in the other forum, it was demonstrated that there is no way to properly timestamp a message using $timestamp since $timestamp relies on the mIRC's option.
However there is something big I completely missed, it's that /echo -t is short for prefixing the line with $timestamp itself, it's not a separate feature which timestamp the line via its own way.
I also got it wrong as to how it's working: if you have the option (alt + o > irc > message > timestamp events) checked but you delete the format and save, mIRC will automatically use a default format of [HH:nn]. So the problem with $timestamp is only limited to this option being unchecked.
And this is, if anything, what makes this feature suggestion invalid since we were trying to avoid relying on uncertain things.
That is, to be consistent, a switch for /?line would have to also prefix the line with nothing if the option is not enabled, aka it's not solving the problem: timestamping a line.
Right now there's no safer way than using $asctime or $time (both can take parameter) yourself, as part of your text to be display and the only way to improve this is to create a switch which is not dependent on the mIRC option. However if you keep thinking about it, you'll realize the problem, if it's not dependent on an option, then you have to specify the format yourself, which defeats the purpose of the switch: using a switch like -THH:nn:ss or prefixing your text with $asctime(HH:nn:ss) is very much the same and kind of invalidate this suggestion of a switch.
That being said, the original intention of this suggestion might have been to simply be consistent; that if /echo has a switch to prefix with $timestamp, /?line commands could have a switch to do that as well.
Silly of him to not elaborate until questioned though.
I never tried to know, but regardless I still don't know why OP cannot or refuse to use /echo, sorting is just one counter example for /aline vs /echo. I can definitely read that he wanted this for /aline and not /echo, you missed that, somehow, it was and a way to show you he wants /aline and not /echo, and small taunt!
