Page/Post Discussion box

I’m sure this is way too late in the cycle, but I just have to vent about the Discussion box on the Post/Page editor.

I guess it was in 3.2, but maybe even 3.1, the Discussion panel went from being displayed by default, to hidden by default, where it still remains.

I’m the author of the Weaver theme, which has tens of thousands of users.

The #1 support question I get (seriously – this is the single most asked question, even though it is not related to any theme): How do I stop comments on my pages/posts.

This all started after hiding the Discussion box became the default. It has been hard enough to get people to find the option on the Scrren Options tab, but now that the option to un-hide that panel is hidden even more, I can imagine the support questions will increase even more.

As a theme designer, and as someone who deals with thousands of users, I simply do not understand why this very important option remains so difficult to find and use.

Having the box show by default would hurt no one, yet hiding it is costing thousands and thousands of WordPress users incredible frustration and hours of lost productivity tracking down how to get that damn discussion box showing. Of all the changes made to the WP admin interface, this has to be the single most costly in terms of how hard it has made life for users.