The discussion, unfortunately, had NOT ended, the two primary posted posted AFTER my first post in the thread. The last post involving the issue was TWO MINUTES (based on time stamps) before I locked the thread.
Had everyone paid attention there would have been no reason for me to go back into the thread nor to, eventually, lock the thread.
Considering that my other option was to put several folks on the beach for a week, or permanently, locking the thread was, IMO, the lesser of the two options.
You are, of course, free to disagree.