[quote]I dislike collabing or the idea of using titanpad or otherwise within a small group as opposed to just getting on with the IC posting itself. All it takes is for one person to slow things down within a collab and it hinders and slows down the rest too (not to mention the difficulties involved with seperate timezones and the like), whereas if you've got the IC actually continually moving it makes it easier for every other player to respond to.[/quote]

I would combat that simply with the fact you can get a whole lot more done in terms of plot and 'moving forward' in a collab session than you can via IC posting in the same amount of time. I would even say that among good roleplayers, a 2 hour collab session could easily be worth 2 days of inconsistent IC posting. Essentially, if someone is going to stop posting or not be active, it's going to hurt you and the roleplay regardless of what posting style you're using. I would even disagree with the thought that any form of IC posting makes it easier for 'every other player to respond to' when there are only four or five roleplayers. If one has just wrote, there are three or four. If one is inactive, two or three. That means, in any case, there are two or three roleplayers on standby that can post. If one person is inactive, they're going to be equally detrimental to a collab or an IC, but in a collab you can just edit and insert whatever information you need to bypass them without utterly disregarding them, which gives their character a sense of presence when they're actually not and gives the roleplayer an equal opportunity to respond. It also makes it easy to assess just how big of a detriment a roleplayer can be in terms of progress.

The entire dynamic of collabing is far more effective than single posting. It comes at the cost of writing being a shared event. Writing a post suddenly becomes a 'session' over a 'set of time' instead of a little scenario when you're done. You suddenly have to engage with other people actively. The downfall of it is solely that people and their schedules don't often align correctly. Although easy for some, a lot of people aren't active at the same time as others, so creating a 'session' isn't nearly as easy so the benefits aren't fully reaped. Once the actual benefits and dynamic of collabing is established, it is - in my opinion - the single healthiest, most effective and most productive method of text-based roleplay. 

However, I will admit that ideally you won't collab 'all the time'. In many cases, character interaction or plot events won't allow it. So, really, knowing when and how to use tools such as collaboration posts is the skill to develop. Every situation in a constantly changing dynamic such as a text-based adventure and/or story calls for a different medium to address it by. Just because a method is more effective in several ways doesn't make it the best suited for the given situation.