OK, after some template detective work, I think I figured out how to strip the AJAX magic that wasn't so magical from the templates. Comments should be back to normal, but please let me know if things still aren't working for you.
Also, you may have noticed that I changed the icon in the upper page header. My sister mentioned that she missed seeing a car across the top of the page when she visited. I do to and plan to do something more substantial to personalize the look, but changing the logo/icon in Mid-Century is pretty easy and documented on Jim Ramsey's blog here.
Now that I've sorted the commenting wonkiness, I'm planning to make some other changes to this theme to make it my own. Yes, I plan on figuring out how to bring the commenting preview and formatting buttons back as well.
Testing to see if the change in JavaScript fixed the js error & commenting still works.
Wow, Im glad there are people who know about this stuff, because I really cant follow all the technical jargon.
I like the new template Doug.. look forward to seeing it morph :)