Mute feature is meant for active flooders in a case of raid, regular users shouldn't be muted. Janitors can use the warning feature (and maybe use the muting feature in the rare case they have a reason to think a single user they already warned is repeat offending something), and mods can simply use the ban panel if the deleted post was worth muting the poster over anyways

As for the thread itself
I don't know what made the responsible staff delete your thread, it looked more like the type of question thread noone would know the response to reply it, and silently fall off the main page to me
Restored it for the time being