Are comments in Named Queries known to not work correctly?

This. Comments are part of SQL scripting, not SQL statements. Scripting is outside the scope of JDBC, and is only partially supported by some JDBC drivers.

This is complicated in named queries by Ignition's need to find parameter references and place question marks in the right places (value params), and/or perform string interpolation (queryString params). JDBC itself only accepts question-mark parameters.

Sorry.