[bsaunder]

Perhaps because (s)he wants to share with the community that at least one person agrees with the comment:

Previously: click up arrow, score of parent shows as 2.

Now: click up arrow... no one knows. Post a comment to make it visible (ideally add some other relevant detail).

Definitely suboptimal.

[Locke1689]

Isn't that what we're trying to avoid? Having some symbol of agreement?

[Silhouette]

I'm not really sure what people wanted to avoid by getting rid of the voting numbers. Posts still appear to be ranked based partly on score, and posts near the top of a discussion are still going to get more upvotes and replies.

Meanwhile, if someone posts about the project they are setting up and 50 people reply to the discussion with an assortment of feedback, it is probably useful/interesting to know that 5 of those ideas were also supported by many other people. Personally, I would rather see that from a simple, discreet number than a million "me, too" posts. The latter is the most obvious negative change I have observed since the scores disappeared, though as it happens I do agree with many of the other points people have made in this discussion as well.

If you're worried about too much groupthink and people trying to score every last point they can for some reason, surely there are other approaches that could be implemented quite simply: you could use some sort of grouping with a logarithmic scale, for example, or cap the maximum points any post can receive and let it decay accordingly in the priorities relative to newer posts no matter how many upvotes it got at the start of the discussion.