Here is one popular blog with a simple open voting system: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog
That has voting but it doesn't seem to have threaded comments. That means switching to that plugin would break all the existing comment threads.
As I said, Scott is not interested in improving the commenting system,
I would guess that the main issue is that he doesn't want to do work to improve it.
Arguing what's an improvement also isn't easy.
If I look at the blogs of influential people who do put effort into it, I don't see that they all use a comment solution that Scott refuses to use.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.