The implication of spamming a list of links over and over and over again (paired with the blatant admission in his profile that he mostly doesn't read HN anymore due the amount of dupes) is that Colin is dissatisfied and is trying to make a point which in doing so is only contributing more of what is evidently causing him distress (lack of richness in content); it can't be argued that bludgeoning posters and readers over the head with a wall of links is comparable to real discussion imo.

See why I'm having a problem with this?

I don't see it as a good thing. I see it as more shit to wade through in order to get to the content I'm after. Unfortunately, it's something I'm seeing more and more often, over the course of the past several weeks... Colin isn't the first person to do this and I believe the consensus before was that ultimately it's a disservice to the community, well intentioned or not. (RiderOfGiraffes had a script that did something similar I think?)

Edit: As I can't reply to you directly yet Scott, I'll add this here:

"It is not itself discussion, but it points readers to discussions."

You understand exactly how I feel! :) You're absolutely correct: it adds nothing to the discussion and is therefore misplaced in the comments.

Now if there were a way to add some kind of list of similar or duplicate articles to an article that was independent of the comment threads, I would definitely be in support of this! But as comments, they feel like more spam. :(