Fair enough, make it a choice, although

1. for me personally, I don't know why anyone would care that everyone saw their comments. I'm sure someone has a reason, but beats me what it would be. I don't need anyone else to see that someone said "whoohoo that's wonderful!" to me.

2. That wouldn't help the voting situation any, because then a person could just delete all the bad comments, or delete any comment that didn't have a vote attached to it, giving a false percecption to the next viewer.