Our broader goal is to make Stack Overflow a more welcoming and interactive platform
That's an inappropriate goal, for two reasons:
- SO is a repository of questions and answers to them. It should not encourage people to interact on question pages, as a goal unto itself. Interaction which improves the question, or the answers (or pruning irrelevant ones etc.) is important, not interaction for its own sake.
- We have a notion of StackExchange Inc.'s idea of what's "welcoming" - and we disagree and disapprove. You've been told this before, in no uncertain terms, both literally and with massive downvotes, and yet you persist. For example, recall this 2020 post by your CTO-of-Product, Mr. Fullerton, with a -683 vote score and, among others, this reply.
... where users can more easily ask for clarifications and... engage in helpful follow-up discussions
That should absolutely not happen on question&answers pages. For that, we have the chat. If you want something else that's interactive - go right ahead, just don't spoil SX question pages please.