>You could post under different topics so people could read my programming or local posts without having to cope with my religious or political posts (just examples, I never got around to the two last ones I think).

I don't think that would work thesedays. If you had a political post, I'd say you'd correctly keep it in its correct circle (based on you highlighting the feature here), but since Google+ was a thing, a new generation of twitter addicts have the mantra of "everything is political, even looking at a keyboard is a political act, politics affects everything you do, even if you just sit there, so that's why my political rant is in your model train collector circle #sorrynotsorry"

So they'd abuse the circles feature with that mantra as an excuse.