[quote=@LegendBegins]
<Snipped quote by Shienvien>

There are many people (not unlike myself) who never read their notifications anyway. Personally, I never miss reading a post on threads I'm subscribed to, so the notifications become superfluous. Others simply won't care enough to check them, and not allowing anyone to disable them won't change the fact that they won't check them. Making the option available won't cause it to happen more frequently, and virtually every other site with notifications has the ability to customize which notifications you'd like to receive.
[/quote]

I think auto-dismissing notifications when you read the post in question would be an easy enough fix. The other notifications that get useful are when someone rates an old post of yours, or @mentions you in a thread you're not normally part of as a means to get your attention. Or quotes for a similar reason.