The new comment system is a little maddening. I cannot figure out how to change it from placing new comments on top to on the bottom, as it did before. However, when one is replying to other comments, the replies seem to go top-down, making scrolling through the comment threads difficult.
The good news is that the comments are now RSS-compliant, so I can keep track of them that way.
Echo is still adding features and listening to complaints, so the jury is still out.