Where are the readers?

If comments in response to news stories or blogs is any measure of up or down readership numbers, Patch, since its format redesign has clearly fallen off a cliff. The comments section is so far below a story or blog and so much advertisement and previewing, etc. is in between that the comments area is disembodied from the text and as jumbled as this sentence. Mostly, I find myself logging into Patch to see if it is still around.