#Smithereen update. If a comment gets deleted and there are replies to it, this no longer breaks the thread. In this particular case, instead of deleting the DB row completely, I null most of it but keep id and reply key. And the #ActivityPub object remains fetchable but returns a Tombstone with replies & inReplyTo. Speaking of replies, my posts didn't have that collection for some reason, now they do.
See also: https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/post-deletions-and-their-potential-to-break-threads/708/4