A few people have mentioned information density as being important. I've got the 'Stylish' chrome extension installed with a userstyle for hn which looks like this:

table > tbody > tr:nth-child(3) > td{-webkit-column-count: 2; }

2 column layout is v.cool. Makes the front page as well as the comments section much more readable for me.

example: http://imgur.com/a/oidEM#1