Reading over that, I actually recognize I miss the older HN - where the conversations seemed fairly long and in depth. It's still often the case, but it does seem like the average length and depth is decreasing.
I completely agree. There are a few contributing factors, none of which are unsolvable. But it seems like the way to solve it is to essentially fork HN.
The current plan is to create a "mirror" of HN's front page, but with a smaller community. You'll be bale to keep your HN name, because you won't be allowed to use someone's existing HN name on the new site unless you claim it.
Then, we'll need content. This was the secret sauce in the early HN days. The sole reason for people to come to the new site would be good conversation, and I think recruiting a few of the writers from HN would be enough to bootstrap it. Part of HN's early success was that pg actually participated in HN. Whereas the current mod team just shows up to beat us over the head and little else.
If you want to help plan this out, contact me (email's in profile). I think we have a shot at this. Some past thoughts on the topic: