I'm glad to see more of this conversation happening. I made reveddit [1] to provide oversight for secret removals which happen more often than you may think. For example, [2] is an upvoted comment from a mod-verified contributor that was removed, likely without notifying its author.
I wish reddit would indicate to the author when their comment has been removed by a moderator. I don't know if that will ever happen. It seems duplicitous to me to present your content differently to you than to everyone else (see the image at the top of [1]).
[1] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq
edit: This comment was at the top of the thread for about an hour. Now it appears to have been flagged or modded to the very bottom: https://archive.is/LcsL7#selection-5181.0-5225.24