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Johno,

I'm gonna talk some shop with you, I've been at this quite some time.  I've been a key adviser on some national platforms.  What's coming at you isn't minor league heat.  This Comment Generator (CG) process has national implications.  Craft your reply carefully (because you'll be supporting your platform) and include examples.

 Here's my take...

There are 2 comment generators (CG) in my arsenal. 

1. A short one that sells cars,
2. A long one for SEO (microsites).

They are different products and Dealers will profit both.  Dealers need the short CG 1st. 

The Short CG has to built and optimized to improve CTRs on SRPs.  SRP's are the main stay of our biz.   They exist on the dealer's site, on AT, Cars.com, CarGurus.com, EveryCarListed, etc..    AT's SRP is especially important as it has 145 characters as a teaser to create a VDP.

Example:

This 2011 Chevrolet Aveo has the fabulous LT w/2LT package! King size options are: leather seats, rear spoiler, heated power mirrors, sunroof, and 6..

Any CG solution that is not optimized for AT's SRP has it's ROI handicapped.

 Once the shopper has reached the VDP (on AT, Cars.com or dealer's site) The next mission of the short CG is to energize the reader to SUFFER thru the bullet list of options (shopping online TAKES HOURS and is tiring).

The short CG is built to fit into a single paragraph and SMACK the shopper with it's best punch and keep that shopper from hitting the back browser button.

Long CG has it's place on a dealers site, but not without a great deal of VDP conversion optimization done in tandem with the Long CG. My instincts are telling me that in this example (Long CG on dealers VDP), the content needs to be sprinkled about so as to not smother the selling the car itself. 

If you are deeply involved in the science of conversion optimization, I am a fan of the long page VDP are you?  The problem is SEO fodder is noise to the shopper. Lastly, google recoginizes the the dealer site as a catalogue site, it sees duplicate content everywhere.  IMO (at this hour), site architecture is where the SEO upside is at.

Lastly, regarding Long CG, I had high hopes for microsites galore, but the search results market place has turned and it has diluted microsites ROI. Smart players (like me  are taking PPC campaigns deep into the long tail, thereby pushing microsites further down the fold.  Microsites still have it's place, but all the low hanging fruit is now hard to find.