We contacted newScale multipe times in the past year and multiple times before that on this feature and they mentioned they do not see the need for it. Recently with the acquisition with Cisco, they are using RequestCenter/Workplace portal in a much larger audience and it seems they see the need for it now. I can't say where it stands on the priority list though.
That being said, our company has implemented this feature through the use of a custom ServiceLink Comment Adapter. It will email the customer/initiator/performer and anybody else who else is on a Carbon Copy field when a comment is added. Comments can either notify or not notify. So when performers are just updating the comments for a worklog type of thing, they don't notify anyone. When they need to collaboration then they tell it to notify. Customer/Initiators on the otherhand default to always notify. The email template then includes the comment text. It's very useful and definitely a major gap I see with the out of the box system. We also can detect when fields are changed and send email notifications on what field changed and what the basis of those changes are. Use cases for this are for when files are uploaded or when a description is updated as part of a workflow. The parties on the request can then understand what's happening without having to go into the system. This field change notification is a preference that a user turns on globally or on a request by request basis.
Alan
