> On a basic level, comments should: inform, educate, outline and help others understand the sometimes complex routines and functions that we all create and often under an enormous amount of pressure.
Take the time to simplify the complex routines, clean them up and make them readable and don't waste your precious time in writing "good comments".
> Code can become complex, awkward, spaghetti-like and almost unfathomable at times.
The solution for this is not "comment more". It's "clean up the mess".
> At times, code comments can be worth more than the code itself.
That doesn't make any sense. If the code has no value, you can remove it.
> I've always strived to teach less experienced developers to comment well, efficiently and with a little humor/humour (where possible); Something that allows us to understand code quickly, appreciate the efforts of those before us and smile/grin at the complexity of a challenge.
Please don't do that. Of course it's your code base, but usually it's best to find better venues to express your humor than code comments. Also: teach the junior developers to write clean code first.
Comments too often are used as a bad device to fix code. A developer first writes a horrible mess of code and stops. He may then realize that perhaps no-one will understand it. But if we now teach them not to clean up the code but rather just "write some funny comments", do you think it's any better?
I've seen too many code bases written with this attitude. The comments usually don't help at all, they distract the reader and they distract the author. It's too often useless noise. Many developers hide the comments from these code bases so that they can concentrate on what ACTUALLY is relevant: the code.