Hello Mark:
I do not know how FS does its inheritance, but I have had to fix a problem with commenting on news stories which (at the bottom) was a permission problem.
Basically, if the news_item did not have the general_comments_create privilege, it would not work. Finally, I figured out that all news_items inherit from a (poorly-named in my view) folder called news. Once I gave this folder the gcc privilege to Registered Users, all news_items could be commented on.
BTW, now the Solicit Comments parameter of the news application works at expected!
Regards..