Oh, it's just that I went to this discussion because there were (seemed to be) many comments, so I thought it was something interesting. Social proof. And I suppose others a bit look at the comment count too. But this time, turns out it's all just comments about comments :-)
> 20 comments
But there's only 20 if counting the dead spam comments too.
So an idea: One can use them, to make one's own submissions look more interesting (more people discussing).