HN is not backed by a large organization/company and does not have money to employ a few people to redesign the site and make some long desired and badly needed improvements. /s

While you’re complaining about link sizes, did you notice how tiny and close the voting buttons are and how bad the general accessibility of HN is?

In a way, I think all this bad design prevents people from using it too much…and that may actually be a good thing.

If this answer seemed pointless, that’s because nobody can answer this question properly on an Ask HN post. Emailing hn@ycombinator.com may probably get a more appropriate answer.