[joshuamorton]

My experience differs. Consistent and well formed prose in docstrings and comments absolutely helps reason about unfamiliar code. Nitpicking for good formatting, spelling, and grammar is valuable in code comments just the same as in documentation or any other form of technical writing.

If the comments aren't important enough to spend care and thought on, they should be deleted.

> If it has a meaningful impact on the ability to read it, it’s not a nitpick.

This is boring semantics. Given what you describe as nitpicks, we draw the line of meaningful impact on readability in different places. So I'm claiming that some of the things you describe as nitpicks in fact aren't.