Nobody would have to butcher anything if you removed the character limit on titles, or at least increased it to a more reasonable default. I doubt even many HN users are browsing from an 80 column terminal, so the restriction seems not to serve much purpose.

You could also cut the titles off at the nearest word add an ellipsis and a tooltip so people could read the entire thing without sacrificing canvas space - which might also improve accessibility.

Each would seem to be a better option than constantly trying to make titles fit into an arbitrarily restrictive space.