Ed, you said:
 
>The comment in the List Owners Manual says "topics are active only when the
>subscriber's subscription is set to MAIL." That does not mean a subscription
>cannot be set to specific topics while it is in DIGest mode. Your steps
>below could have been accomplished without this switch to MAIL.
 
But right after that sentence it says:
 
"Digests are indexes always contain all the postings that were made,
because the same digest is prepared and sent to all subscribers."
 
Those with DIGEST would get all the TOPIC mail (some of which is quite
lengthy), whether or not they subscribed to a TOPIC.  That's why we don't
use DIGEST any more.
 
Jilla