Thanks, shadow. I grabbed Recent Comments and did the same thing. It's pretty good for now, I couldn't get some of the plugin tags to work, so I left it at the default, a chronological list of links: "User commented on Post Title".
I'm also using Get Recent Comments, but it doesn't seem to allow parameters from the tag so maybe I can run only one configuration. Now, it's limited to last five comments for the sidebar. So for now, I have both plugins going.
Didn't realize comments was a second class citizen in WP world. My blog is the type where a fair number of comments either thread from a direct post-related comment to a broader discussion, or are not even directly post-related, more blog topic-related. So comments act like a forum, which isn't uncommon. It would be GREAT to integrate, like, bbPress with WP comments, so comments and threads could be selectively, seamlessly carried over from blog to forum!