[Andrenid]

This pretty much says word-for-word what I wanted to post. I find the existing HN design to be one of the easiest-to-read news sites around. There's absolutely no clutter, no "design getting in the way of content", and the way the meta data (post author, date posted, etc) is small and grayed out, makes it a lot easier to just skim through the post titles. Same goes once you're in the comment section.

Rather than a new design, I think HN could more benefit from new (and optional) ways to order and present the posts and comments. I'd like to read comments in their chronological order, for example, to get a better feel of the progression of the conversation.