[consulting] Community site discussions done... the entity/relation way?

[Audrius Naslenas]

Hi,

Currently working on OG based community site, which has pretty much most 
of groups.drupal.org functionality (in D7) and a bit similar to Commons 
distribution.

So, more than halfway into development I really really start to hate the 
node->comment->comment... way of discussion threads. In D6 there was a 
magical module - Nodecomments, which made life much easier, because then 
you have one entity type for content and comments.

My question would be:
Are there any working practical examples on D7 which could substitute 
default comment system and also plug in nicelly into OG ecosystem? It 
seems, that there are many Entity* and Relation* modules, which in my 
opinion are capable of doing this, but It is beyond my knowledge to get 
those "glue" priciples for final results.

What would you suggest? The option to wait for next core or downgrade to 
D6 is not acceptable.
Any links, docs, videos, opinions would be extremely usefull as I cannot 
find anything usable, just another descriptions of the same problem.

Thank you in advance.

Regards,
A.

p.s. There is "Reply" module - I will test it extensivelly, but it looks 
a bit short for my task.