I pay attention to comments first, too, but I can't help but remember the handles - especially if I had a back-and-forth with someone over the course of a day, and had to verify that I'm still replying to the same commenter. Like, I recognize your handle, I think we've been replying to each other on some thread some weeks ago.

(Then again, maybe I'm projecting, assuming more community in this place than there really is. I'm a HN addict after all.)