[JupiterMoon]

Yeah "a pig to use" might come across as inflammatory and I guess that this expressing my personal preference (which is just as valid as yours but clearly neither are objectively correct).

Disclosure I use no script and am very happy that HN works without any javascript.

Practically I find collapsible comments highly annoying in every case I've seen them used. This is probably because they seem to either (1) require javascript, or (2) require page reloads, or (3) both.

In the case of HN, dang et al do a good job of detaching irrelevant comments.

I guess that collapsible comments should be one of those optional features that could be available with javascript but gracefully degrade to showing the full tree without.