When I wanted to jazz up my comments I started with Intensedebate and loved it at first but then technical issues came up and they never responded to my requests for help. For example I had it set to e-mail me when I got a comment but it rarely did - only when a comment got put in the moderation bucket. The other thing was there was some bug where my own comments were moderated even when I was logged in. I got tired of working on the comments.

Anyhoo I moved to Disqus and some of the comments about 3rd party services doesn't apply. I specifically picked Disqus for the sync with my db so I keep all my comments and I have it set so guests can comment without registering and I like the multiple way to sign-in if you do go that route to leave a comment.

Forum based comments aren't a single a solution just as having comments isn't for all types of blogs. I'll check out some of the suggestions but my blogs are too small for a forum - I'm not really looking for a community but I understand some might want that.