After reading the comments here, I think it all depends on what Wordpress sees as its future. Is it mostly businesses? Then no comments needed. Is it mostly (or at least a good chunk) bloggers? Then comments should be a first-class citizen. As others have said, I find it frustrating when I'm reading a blog post and can't comment. Sometimes I want to congratulate the author. Other times I want to ask a question for clarification. At this point in my life, if I disagree, I just leave it alone.

On my own blog I've mostly had very positive comments and have learned a lot from the comments. I wish WP was better at brining in comments that happen outside the blog - like Twitter mentions, reddit, etc.

As for the webmention - how does that differ from pingbacks and trackbacks? Those were great for a bit and then pretty much everyone turned them off.