I think the eccentricity of the site design is just the right barrier to entry to keep it from getting flooded with low quality traffic
It's not that eccentric, it's a basic forum, recognizable to any web oldhead or Reddit user.
I mean, 4chan's design is far more eccentric and they're not exactly a bastion of high quality intellectual discourse.
Also, this discussion isn't really about the site's design, but its performance.
No one said anything about remaking the site! Just finishing up some server-side performance improvements in order to e.g. get rid of the More links in long comment threads.