WP is ignoring my <br>s!

I’m using the straight text editor (e.g., “Use the visual editor when writing” is unchecked) in WP, but it’s still ignoring any extra <br>s I put in! Also, for some reason it actually displays my HTML comments when I copy/paste code into the editor window, OR adds a space in the generated code where the comment is hidden.

What gives? Tried doing a search but nothing related to <br> came up. ??