Deleting Threads

Dear QA,
I agree that abusive posts that breach your policies should not be tolerated but I feel that deleting the entire the thread is the wrong solution.
This is effectively punishing the entire community for the bad behaviour of a minority. People spend many hours contributing to these threads.
It also means that debates on any controversial, and thus important, topics are short-lived because the same people derail them.
Deleting the thread does not prevent those abusive posters continuing this behaviour on other threads.

Can I suggest that, rather than deleting the thread, you remove that person's right to post on the forums and delete the individual posts that contain the offence.