I expect the token functions support ranges because there's an explicit delimiter, whereas for $comchan and most similar identifiers there isn't. To use your example again, why would $comchan($nick, 1-) return space-delimited channel names? Why not commas for usage like msg $comchan($nick, 1-) Nick change: $nick -> $newnick? In the absence of an obvious/explicit choice it makes no sense to pick one over the other and risk confusion.
In fact if anything using commas would make more sense since at least in that usage you've changed a loop into a single-line command. In your example all you've done is replace a loop through $comchan() with a loop through $n (albeit a convoluted one).
