Sorry if the answer is painfully obvious, but is it possible to set JoomlaComment to allow guests to view existing comments but not be able to post until they register? I see this as an excellent way to get people interested, and to entice people to register, but still be able to mitigate comment spam. Please let me know else I will have to attempt to hack this solution myself.
And thank you for investing your time and expertise in bringing this project back.
JoomlaComment is really the ONLY "free" alternative to the commercial bloat that is JomComment (not that JomComment doesn't have some good things about it). O, and joomla.org still has JoomlaComment 3.25 rather than 3.26.