"1. I consider that an expressed interest. So, that is good news for Nina. ;-)"
Yes, definitely. I follow all the stuff you guys do here religiously, but usually at a lag cause I have work responsibilities and friends offline.
Nina's books are at the Siam Society and I have read the easier one. Abhidhamma is a difficult topic that I am studying slowly, one day hopefully I will be able to grasp fully her points, but it is good that they are here, one google search away.
"2. There is no doubt English translations of the commentaries would be valuable, and I am sure Nina would be able to provide excellent translations from the Pali. If you are keen to make it a regular feature, please propose your ideas."
The big glaring gap are the commentaries on the main Sutta collections (Digha Nikaya, Majjhima Nikaya, ... will try to provide list today). I am always seeing references to them, but they are not even easily available in Pali and there are no English translations that I am aware of.
"3. Bhikkhu Bodhi is right in his reflections of his first published translation. That the commentaries present a "narrower, more specific view" of the Buddha's teachings. I simply like to add "to a known target audience". For that matter, I am as keen as you to gain insight into the commentaries."
Yes, the "audience" insight is important. Which makes them historical artifacts perhaps. Perhaps, as Buddhist laymen 200 years later we need new commentaries.
"4. My method of study gives preference to the suttas. It is fortunate that most of them are now available in English translations, which are helpful when I read the Pali. Given a certain topic, I prefer to check out what the Buddha mentioned in all the suttas, the teachings and the metaphors he used, and consult the commentaries only as necessary."
Online corpus tools are or will certainly make this more easy, hopefully.
Can't imagine manpower starved Pali studies not using computers to, for example, complete dictionaries and provide example sentences for dictionaries.