xsl (xhtml & groff): comments in some places are silently dropped!

bug:

<variablelist>
<!-- ... -->
<varlistentry> ... </varlistentry>
<!-- ... -->
</variablelist>

both comments are stripped despite a customization instruction to
preserve it!

also,

<itemizedlist>
<!-- ... -->
<listitem> ... </listitem>
<!-- ... -->
</itemizedlist>

there are probably other places where this happens.
how do I check that all my comments are preserved?!

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running RedHat9 GNU/Linux
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