Voting on individual comments does not limit freedom of speech because people would still be able to post as they wish (while obeying forum rules) regardless of the feedback given, just as you are doing now even though Sirrocco and I disagree with your prediction of how a voting system would affect the community. I'm interested in hearing what you have to say, and I'm not suggesting that we mute your voice when less people are in accord with your opinion. The system should not replace moderators and should not have a direct ability to censor a post. It would allow more people to participate in more threads, thereby increasing user feedback. It has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with efficiency.

Threads will not become popularity contests. If many people up-vote a comment, then it gives devs and the community a better idea of what everyone likes, wants, and is thinking. I understand your concern about posting for the sake of appealing to the masses, but from my experience with such systems (reddit, leagueoflegends), it encourages intelligent posts that enrich the thread and open up new lines of thought rather than deviate or digress from the topic at hand.

Also, the idea of voting on comments isn't to bump a thread to the top of the forum or to bury a thread that is unpopular. Votes should not affect how the forum displays the thread, but it should reflect the gross community's opinion on the ideas in the thread. Individual comment voting allows for more precise feedback.

Making bad rated posts disappear should not be a function of a comment voting system. It should be up to the mods to get rid of bad posts. I think we can agree on this point.