Yes, I had a feeling some of the users would need to be re-instated, is why they were tentatively removed.

Just tested on Linux (using RHEL) and it handles it quite differently.

On Linux with only the "commented-out" line in /etc/passwd, ls -l shows me the UID, as I'd expected. If then I add the user back by copying the line and removing the comment, ls shows the username (regardless of whether I put the new entry before or after the commented-out one).

Mind you Scott I have also been doing the same, but now i will add the space after #... the reason is more for me on some servers (e.g. statistics office...) applications may be user/group developped, not being member of the office I dont remember or know all the changes in their staff.. for me to solve their issues I have to give names of people (for half - owners of specific application...) for them to tell me who is responsible of the application. on another server Im testing moving of obsoleted home dir saved elsewhere to have names but found cases where things took more time : The UID name didnt teach you much on the User true name and could not find a copy of /etc/passwd of the time to help you...
So I tend to comment out in these cases (UID/GID dependant code) and reaffect them to people when they are replacing the previous in usage (and so responsible of the code...) and give new Id to new staff