That's more accurate than you know. A down voted comment doesn't mean it's a bad comment. Simply that it doesn't adhere to what the community deems as right. This defeats the purpose of shading out the comments. Since the quality of a comment can't be determined by it's color, you have to read it yourself.

Karma has evolved to merely mean: I don't post unpopular opinions.

This is merely anecdotal, of course, and should go without saying (but needs to be said here). I see this happening with other people's comments far more often. It's a shame that while we removed karma from posts, we still display and indicator of the groupthink to the world.

In the end, a comment should either be displayed, or flagged and removed.