Yeah, for me on Gmail (subscribed to the commit list as well as wikitech) the current way is actually pretty good. It has the drawback that I don't necessarily notice replies to a commit when paging through my mail, but on the other hand the commit is right there for me to look over.
Yeah, I find it works well, too. I generally notice when there's a reply, although it is easy to miss if you're scanning quickly through the list.