Yes, of course. The limit only gets in the way when you have longer comments, and for shorter comments a higher limit would be harmless.

yesssss please let me bloviate more

What Penelope said.

I so far only hit the limit occasionally.

eh, doesn't matter to me. I'm too tired to engage in long comments and comment threads at this point so i just use the character limit we have.

I don't think so, but I wouldn't mind it

Not really. You can always carry on onto another comment if you need to. I just wish the comment box was a box and not a continuous line. It would be far easier to use - especially on a phone.