[andersa]

I completely agree, this is perhaps the least sensible part of common English syntax.

   "Hello," he said.  
   "Hello", he said.

Only one of these makes actual sense as a hierarchical grammar, and it's not the commonly accepted one! If enough of us do it correctly perhaps we can change it.

[wvbdmp]

I’ve always wondered about this. I guess typographically they should just occupy the same horizontal space, or at least be kerned closer in such a way as to prevent the ugly holes without cramming.

It’s true, though, that the hierarchically wrong option looks better, IMHO. The whitespace before the comma is intolerable.

This is an interesting case where I am of two autistic hearts, the logical one slowly losing vehemence as I get older and become more accepting of traditions.

[infogulch]

It's especially obvious as a programmer.