Thanks a lot for sharing this. In Trados I also managed to include the comments as non-translatable tags this way:
- Change the closing pattern of the file type to: $
- In "Inline tags" > "Add rule..."
Rule type: Placeholder
with rule regex: " --.*}
In Advanced... choose behavior as "Include".
(Note: it is the first time I try using inline tags generated by me, so please take this with a grain of salt! I am still in the middle of the translation, and while I tested exporting it and it seems to work fine, it might still fail somehow.)