OK, I understand your terminology. Of course, then you should agree that every sentence of every article is a consensus among everyone who has read that sentence. So that pretty much makes the comment useless, doesn't it?
That's the whole principle behind "stable versions". Once people stop editing something, it means there is a consensus on it. However, the consensus derived from an active discussion (even if people don't comment) is stronger than the consensus derived from passive reading. You don't look at an FAC request without thinking about whether it would make a good FA, you do often read an article without thinking about every sentence.