Would they still get the highlighted "PEACE FOR ALL" text throughout the shortened string? It looks like the length, and presence of those characters, was an explicit design choice.

Maybe they added the comments to get a longer payload for the sake of the shirt's design.

The comments can be more cute/awe inspiring for people who aren't as familiar with bash but like solving puzzles as well.

The HN optimizing T-shirt compiler is the next stage here :D

im just sad it didnt render a qr code leading to malware :'). the different ways ppl look at obfuscated codes and scripts hah