"And do you think that conscious torment is a useful symbol if, in fact, eternal separation from God and His kingdom will involve annihilation?"

Kyle,
I have chosen to take the less then traditional side in regards to “conscious eternal punishment”, only to generate responses here on the forum. I personally am not sure where I stand. I was once, one who didn’t believe there was validity in any of the other views of hell. A guy name Fudge, wrote a book on hell, which caught my interest, because he did what seem to be a quite orthodox approach to what Scripture had to say about the subject and the O.T. and N.T. language for grave, hell, hades and etc. Since he wrote his book, another book came out called “Two Views of Hell”, where he and a reform scholar critique each others view. Thus, I presented this post.
In regards to your question, Fudge and others believe that there will be conscious punishment for a duration then annihilation, depending on the individual’s severity of sin in their life. “The Rich man”, would be experiencing his limited conscious punishment in 16:24. Remember also, that this parable or literal story, has much information that is difficult to understand (see my questions in earlier post),to become to dogmatic on one's view of conscious eternal punishment, at least from this passage.
Geomic