I also agree with bringing it back. I believe I saw somewhere once that it was removed because it was lagging down the server or something?
But really... this is a feature that is commonplace on nearly every internet forum. Don't see the big deal about having it enabled. You mention it would create spam... but really, it's getting people to post more often... Which is something this forum desperately needs. If you remember back a couple years ago this forum was very active and had hundreds of people actively posting each day... Now we have like 30-50 people actively posting each day...
Days go by with no new posts in the general discussion... I mean... what's with that?