Agreed. Dead worries me and I'm very happy I turned showdead on - not because spam shouldn't be deaded, but because I've seen plenty of legitimate comments "deaded" on threads..
The reason you see dead comments is not because they've been individually killed, but because they were posted by banned users. Often it's obvious from the comments why they were banned, but there are some who oscillate between reasonable and trolling.
That's useful to know - thanks! It's a shame that good comments die with the user, though, although I expect few users with consistently good comments are banned anyway.
Otherwise there seems no way to find what the original url was.
I think the items deaded are pretty much spot on, but sometimes I'd like to be able to see what the fuss was about, or points raised in discussions.