@Alex - Well, something I've seen on numerous other sites is the ability to up or downvote a comment. Usually, the comments with the most votes are displayed at the top or, they are displayed with every other comment below it hidden by default. So people reading the comments end up only reading the best ones as voted for by the people.

There is a distinct difference between forum interactions and blog comments. I witnessed this for myself by having the forum part of WPTavern use vBulletin with no integration with WordPress. Some people on the forum only used the forum and never commented on the blog articles. Some blog commenters only commented on the site and never went through with registering a forum account. I always struggled with how to bridge the gap between the two and have the discussion take place at one place where all participate. That's the entire idea behind using bbPress as the commenting form.

As far as commenting goes, what do yo folks think of the commenting form I have on this site? I realize nested/threaded comments would be nice but overall, this is one of the few commenting forms that gives you the ability to edit a comment for a certain period of time after it's been published. What's provided in this comment form without the need for an account I think is one of the biggest draws of it's use.