I like the idea of a counter, but the one we've had isn't the best of indicators. A mere refresh of the page would make the pageview number go up. If I went back to a post to answer a comment, the pageview number would change. If someone else went to reply to my reply, it would change.
If there were a way to make it unique visitors (which apparently is hard), then it would be much more valuable.
I suppose the only true barometer we have for who has read the post are the ones who engage on it. Even the upvote can be automated, so unless you want to find out who autvotes and who doesn't, you can't always count that as an eyeball. Funny thing about the view counter is that it actually gave you a decent idea of who actually autovotes vs. who might have read the post then upvoted, because the view counter would be less than the votes!