I don't find the argument incoherent at all either it's a data transfer format and comments should be stripped before transmission or the comments are part of

I don't find the argument incoherent at all either it's a data transfer format and comments should be stripped before transmission or the comments are part of the data model makes you have to think clearly whether the comments are just "notes to self" at authoring time, or something relevant to the consumer OTOH of course there are plenty of 'greyer' cases