News readers don't work like that unfortunately. When you select an
article, the reader downloads the *whole* article, not just the bits of
it you are reading.

This is not true for all software that accesses Usenet. My palm VIIx
(rest in peace) did it a K at a time. My cell phone does the same, but
even slower. (it's a perfectly awful way to read Usenet, so I don't do
it, but that's irrelevant).

Therefore, a top post with an untrimmed set of
quotes (usually, when top posters reply to top posters, you get an
enormously long history of quoted material at the bottom)

Then your objection is =not= to top posting, but to non-trimming.
Non-trimming is more painful in a bottom posted article - at least with
a top posted article, once I come to the end of the original material, I
can move on.

While your association of top posters with non-trimmers may be valid, it
is irrelevant. I've seen many bottom posters who add five lines to a
300+ line quote (and far too many nested quoting that ends up being 300
lines repeated for the most part post after post - supposedly good
netiquette taken to the extreme - feh!)

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.