Agreed, if the "elite" don't agree with your differing opinion then it will never be heard. When has that type of dictatorship ever worked out well...
I agree about choosing this for new functionality, if you are going to improve comments why not first start with notifications. Currently I'll make a comment and 10 people may reply but I'll have no idea unless I actively look through my own comments, which I might do once a month. This leads to a whole lot of dead end comment threads.
The first thing I do each day (or couple times a day) is click on my name/comments to see if someone has said something interesting in response to a post of mine.
In fact, if the responses are interesting enough - I may never actually look at anything else on HN unless it appears in my RSS feed (filtered to topics > 100 points).
I agree about choosing this for new functionality, if you are going to improve comments why not first start with notifications. Currently I'll make a comment and 10 people may reply but I'll have no idea unless I actively look through my own comments, which I might do once a month. This leads to a whole lot of dead end comment threads.