This is a disturbing step in the wrong direction. If I were doing it in an automated fashion, or going on a diatribe about it, I'd meet you halfway on it and say you have a point, but this feels uncharacteristically like "we will moderate who we please and you're not allowed to notice or comment on it, and don't push the issue, or else."

If the vouch system shouldn't be used to rescue otherwise worthy on-topic comments, what is it there for, and why not ban the user entirely?

Before you 86 me over it, consider if you're in the right here, and what types of chilling effects your statement above has. Nobody claims that this place is the paragon of fairness, but this community works hard to keep it fair and balanced without this type of clandestine moderation. What you just attempted is morally wrong. If that gets me banned for daring to disagree, then you're doing me a favor by adding me to the list.

Even someone who's ideologically motivated like the guy I replied to can be right at times, whether I agree with them personally the rest of the time or not, so I'd implore you to reconsider the readiness with which you bear down on those who are doing the moderation for you by surfacing the comments where the shunned, for once, aren't pursuing their own agendas. Isn't that the purpose of the vouch system?

Deflated.