[kutakbash]

Voting system is a great cleaning mechanism (akin to current in a pond), something that keeps mediocre submissions and poor comments out of sight. If this feature is rationed (eg flow of the current is weakened), comments and posts ought to be rationed as well, otherwise HN gets overwhelmed with poor input.

[simias]

It means the votes will be more meaningful. Unless the ratio of votes/comments gets really really low it wouldn't be much of an issue I think. This can even be tuned dynamically.