The comment issue is a real red herring. This has been argued over and
over in programming language circles. The current richtext comment
syntax is a lot like C comments. You want something more like -- well,
I can't think offhand of any programming languages in which comments
nest, actually, although I'm sure there must be some. But the point
is, the model is not so weird. Big chunks of the world program in it
all the time.
This is not to say that I particularly CARE which syntax we use for
comments, just that, as with the rest of richtext syntax, it just
doesn't matter very much. What matters, I repeat again, is that
richtext exist, not that it be perfect or aesthetically delightful.