This is totally missing the point of a major part of HN's (and other communities') value: The actual links may or may not be important, it's the community discussion that has the more value. In many cases, I find myself not even clicking on the links on HN (either the topic is too mundane or I've already seen it from another source) but go straight for comments.

This particular post is a good example: I have seen this interesting SO tidbit before but learned a few things from the HN discussion.