[deadA1ias]

Actually, I think it would be rather straightforward. I'm a bit embarrassed for HN that they're still using tables and spacer gifs and see it as an intentional pushback on "caving" to modern web techniques. Despite CSS being 20 years old at this point.

[frosted-flakes]

Maybe you're right. I had a poke through the HTML a while back, and there are actually tables-within-tables for some reason. It was way more complicated than I expected it to be. It does seem kind of weird that it still uses tables for layout, when there are so many easier and better ways to do it.

CSS could match the current appearance exactly. I bet if dang put up the code on GitHub he'd get PRs fixing tons of stuff within a week.