It's because of email scavaging bots visiting the forums. But I pretty much doubt they will fall for the dot and at tricks. [Email]-a@t-[/Email] for example would make even less sense to the bot, but (at) will be quite simple to seethrough I think... Just my 2 cents, I don't know how clever they really are,
Cheers
Maybe it would be a good idea to close (or delete) this thread now that we have a winner in case that such a bot visits the Forum