This is actually directed at kiuyhjk's reply, not your's philwelch, but... uh, there's no reply link on kiuyhjk's post in my browser (Chrome 6.0.472.51 beta on Fedora 12)
HN policy to avoid flame wars, AFAIK: the reply button is delayed before it appears for a specific post. seems to be around 4 minutes, at least for the deepness of this conversation.
Oh. OK, Thanks for that. I wonder how I managed to miss that little detail! And hey, bonus point, I just discovered that when people continue to downvote you, it still hits your karma, even if the visible post count stops at -4. Two things I've learned about HN today :)
so, just be more patient in the future ...