Is this universal ? I was an above average student and I do not think that such thing was taught to us ever.
Some things are not taught like that in school or so but become habits if you try on your own. But then again since I am a neat freak myself I do it at times to mark notes and stuff with highlighted points. Something like marking some special stuff in a wall of text.
Forum etiquette are quite rare especially on a free forum accessible to everyone from different parts of the world. Again, this can be subjective, something considered cool at some place may be offensive to members from a certain place.
Actually the reply button is used to reply to the topic on the OP. If there are multiple replies before your reply is going to come, you can use the quote function to reply to several people in a single post and prevent multiple "bump" posts one after the other.
The quote stuff is really annoying. It makes a thread look very long and someone looking for quick replies will find it difficult to navigate as quoted posts is lays everywhere.
Maybe you need to look beyond your shitposting quota of the day and learn a few things on how to talk in the thread with etiquette and then come back? Might even fetch you some merits in future.