par is one of the handiest text tools around. I often use it to reformat longer quotes for HN. I just wish the documentation was a little better. I can only tell you about the two or three options that i use. I do not understand all of the other possible formatting commands and I definitely have no idea why I always set
PARINIT="rTbgqR B=.,?_A_a Q=_s>"
The first version of par was released in 1993 and the first Debian package was in 1996. The latest release will be 13 years old on Tuesday.
Works great for re-wrapping code comments too.
It's been packaged in Debian for ages.