Folk in Europe and America: punctuation in quotations?

[Dina Lerret]

As a follow-up to the whole 'make your post legible' bit, I'm noticing
a trend in fanfic where writers aren't including 'concluding'
punctuation like a comma or period.  I've seen exclamation and
question marks, but the commas and periods are disappearing.  This
tendency is more prevalent among European fans, including the UK.  For
example, a UK fanfic writer, Annie:
[[
"Hey" Jensen opened one eye and grabbed the hand stroking his face
"You are looking better"
]]

It's not just her; I'm encountering this among a variety of writers.
She uses periods and commas elsewhere but not in quotations.  I know
grammar differs in various countries and America may have its own
'bastardized' version of English, but I thought, at least, the UK
didn't completely drop commas and periods in their quotes?  Is this
trait something new or something older?  I was in high school during
the early to mid 90s and that was the last of my formal education
(college dropout).

I'm asking because I proofread over fics--you could say I'm a 'fic
intake' person for a site, which is ironic considered I nearly failed
grammar in school--and I do begin to wonder about these things.  It's
possible to say humans are lemmings by nature: we're taught to follow
by example.  So, if readers see writers drop punctuation and then they
become writers, it's likely some of them will pick up that habit as
well.

Dina