Maybe it doesn't bother you; maybe you're fine with it; however, I think I'm not alone in my irritation when I get a prop for a particular category of content and it's not clear what the prop is actually praising. This can come in two forms: unclear references, and flat-out misuse of the prop feature. For instance, I wrote a lot of articles years ago, but today I might get a prop for articles with a comment saying "Your article was hilarious!" I have no idea which article was meant. Another example: I get props for comments (and I'm not alone in this) where the user isn't actually praising a comment, but is instead using the prop function to say "Hi!" or "Happy Birthday!"....something that should be posted to the Wall, not a prop. I shouldn't have props when I haven't done something noteworthy in that category!
A final example: from time to time, I get fans. Some of these are great users, some are people who never did anything on the site other than register and "fan" people, and others are literally spammers. My general practice is that I'll be a fan of anyone who posts worthwhile content on the site. So when I look into "fanning back", I go to the user's profile and look at two things: the user's activity, and their props. But often I find that users who have done absolutely NOTHING on the site have a dozen or more props. This kind of things diminishes props to the point of meaninglessness, in my view.

What if - and I'm just daydreaming here - we could give a prop to a user from the content that we like, instead of on the user's page? What if, when we selected "give props" under a video, an image, a comment, et cetera, the site gave us a chance to submit a comment with the prop, and then the prop was posted with our comment and a URL for the "propped" content?

What do you think? Would that be an improvement? Or is this another instance of Harold trying to fix something that isn't broken?