This article talks about twitter etiquette. If people follow you, what are your responsibilities to them? Do you HAVE to follow? I have found that I only want to follow those people who are dead on topic for me with either SEO, SEM, Website Design, Blogging and/or those people that are within my state as I enjoy those connections as well. To just follow anyone and everyone that follows you created a huge waste of time for me, and even more things to look at and decide if they are worthy of my time.

I am experimenting with having more than one Twitter “face”.
I have my @yourwebchick profile for my business interests and @veryhappywife for the more girlie side of me that likes to learn and discuss things like gardening, photography, parenting, marriage, cooking, empty-nesters, scrap booking etc. I haven’t spent much time making connections on that one yet so I’ll let you know how my experiment goes.

I do agree that you should always answer your @ reply’s.  but I’m not sure that the reason some people don’t respond is snobbery, I think many people on Twitter don’t really understand how to find their DM’s and @ responses.  To people who have used Twitter for awhile it seems obvious, but I think it’s our responsibilities to help the newbies we see.  I will usually message someone who followed me but doesn’t have a picture or a link or their profile filled out and prompt them to do so.  Most people are greatful that I took my time to help them out.