Sean Barrett wrote:
True. In American English, a list of 3 items is usually "bacon, eggs, and cheese" - not "bacon, eggs and cheese." The later implies a connection between the items, but the former doesn't.
From a book dedication:
I'd like to thank my parents, God and Ayn Rand.
This case is covered in the style manual, which recommends the "with comma" version for exactly that reason, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_style#Commas
(FWIW, the punctuation section I couldn't remember the reference to is on that page as well, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_style#Punctuation)
The current style suggestions seem mostly reasonable to me. Certainly better than a bunch of weird wikimarkup to try to accomodate all variants.
-Mark