I guess this would just be more of an enhancement of the comment plug-in form. For those who don't use the comment form etc and have the plug-in disabled, would it make sense to remove the "10 Most Recent Comments" box from the overview tab? Or is this not tied to the comment form plug-in?

No, that is not tied to that.

Ahhh k, I suppose it makes more sense then.

Still, it does make sense to omit that display if the site does not support comments. (It is there historically from before there was the plugin, etc.) I think it a good idea to tie the display to the plugin--next release.