I wonder if this is fixed in 8 or 9?
To get the number of comments rendered on your node, you can add this to the template (e.g., node.tpl.php) for your theme.
<?php echo "<a href='".$node_url."#comments'>"; print $node->comment_count; if($node->comment_count==1) { echo " comment ";} else echo " comments "; echo "</a>"; ?>