I really value comments. The comment support on this blog is not quite ideal, but it's better than nothing. I really value the opinion and input I get from commenters. Of course, there's no getting away from the fact that comments are still second class citizens on blogs.
A "pingback" is a comment-like communication between two blogs, which addresses this issue a little bit: the commenter is posting on their own blog, and so it's a top-level item, a first-class citizen. The disadvantage is that each participant in the discussion needs their own blog. I'm looking into pingback support for ikiwiki.
It recently occurred to me that to some extend, twitter addresses this issue as well. Everyone is on a level playing field. Given the nature of twitter, it's a second-class playing field (from a blogs-as-articles perspective), but it's even non-the-less.