I like the UI. I know it's hard for some to believe, but it's stark and functional and fast and mostly stays out of the way; it works. The comment scores need to be hidden for comments you didn't write; other than that, what's to improve? Taking back votes? How about, just forget about the vote.
If HN has a problem with titles, it's with not enough stores having their titles rewritten to the article original.
The comment scores need to be hidden for comments you didn't write
People keep saying this, but it would severely limit the utility of the site. When I chance upon a post with more than ~50 comments, I only want to read the 6-7 or so that the community has agreed are best. I perceive a positive correlation between comment scores and quality. That is, the odds that a post with 50 points contains good content do empirically seem to be higher than for posts with 2 points.
In short: I need a comment filter that is more strict than than simply "appears on Hacker News". I don't want to read every single one.
I like using votes to determine whether or not it's worth devling into a deep thread. If there's a conversation that goes 5 levels deep, you can just scan the bottom layers - if they're getting votes, then it's likely to be a worthwhile conversation.
Similarly, if there's a bunch of responses with a score of 1 with replies forking off all over the place, having a visible score lets you catch that at-a-glance and avoid bothering with a conversation that is clearly digressing.
I agree. I love the spartan UI. That said, reading HN sucks on mobile and this would only take a few minutes to fix without compromising the simplicity of the main UX.
If HN has a problem with titles, it's with not enough stores having their titles rewritten to the article original.