[quote]That aside, it occurred to me that the site would probably benefit from a function to hide an individual thread or post, or to block (or ignore) a specific user, thereby automatically hiding all of their posts and threads.[/quote]	This would interfere in the functionality of the forums itself, and hence will absolutely not get any support from me. I've been to sites with such functionality, and it's pretty much broken as far as the flow of things goes.
	(For the matter, I also don't endorse giving GMs mod-level power.)

	An "ignore" option should optimally just make users unable to PM, VM or ping you directly. (Basically, it'd be a thing to make a somehow undesired user incapable of annoying you privately. If they start littering threads - and actually littering threads, not politely asking something in a thread you just happened to start -, it'll become a mod problem.)