Regardless if you like this design or not, I think HackerNews does need some kind of redesign. I can remember when I first started reading there were a lot of things that just weren't intuitive to me. I always wondered why a site for "hackers" and "coders" seemed so basic in features and looked like something from the 90's. Particularly, the login and password reset seems kind of difficult to use. Is there no RSS feed? How do I know when someone replies to one of my comments? Looking at my profile I have no idea what that stuff is for... "Max visits" "minaway" "delay"... ?? I still don't know what that is. I get the speed and simplicity idea but I think there are some user experience issues that can be solved while still having speed and simplicity.
Maybe I'm the only that feels this way, but just my thoughts. Maybe there is a good reason to the current design?
There are documentation pages which explain the features you're asking about. Also, search now works. This may seem really unfriendly, but perhaps friction is sometimes a good thing? RTFM and "use search" have been the grumpy welcome of hacker communities for many years, so I guess that's something that has carried over?
Maybe I'm the only that feels this way, but just my thoughts. Maybe there is a good reason to the current design?