[wheels]

Random comment on the title (as it occurs in the original post) -- is there anyone in the universe that is actually less offended by "sh!t" than "shit"? I've never really understood why on earth someone would bother obscuring potentially offensive word choice by such silly techniques. Either rephrase things in such a way that they do not contain such words, or just write them out...

[DrSprout]

I would bet it's a cultural leftover from posting in forums and chat rooms with naive profanity filters years ago when the Internet was young.

There are likely still places where sh!t will get you past someone's laughable idea of a profanity filter.

[shrikant]

Maybe the intent is to beat clbuttically retarded Internet filters?

[kenj0418]

Ke$ha perhaps?