Grammar

I much prefer your sentence, because, as you say, it flows significantly better and imho sounds more poetic. I guess it depends on the purpose. Interestingly (I think, anyway) in my experience in the legal world, by general consensus and "house style" commas are not used except for in lists. Which runs contrary to the grammar I have been taught, such as I have been, but does at least illustrate that it is horses for courses.

tl;dr: depends on where it's being used, stick to your guns, yours sounds better.

[Oliver to come along shortly and provide a real answer]

Thanks for the advance hype. :)

I'm afraid not using commas except for lists is a rather daft rule, as commas can fulfil vital grammatical functions. Surely they can't mean to leave them out as radically as that? The standard example is constructions like this:

The brakeless rider who was skidding along the road ended up stopping more quickly than the other brakeless rider, who jumped off his bike and fell into the ditch.

There's probably quite a lot of places on-line which explain this sort of case. If, like me, you like books, Fowler's is a very concise guide and a must-have.