Early to mid 2000s was the best time in web design. Everything before that was "omg, i can put animated images and color on the web, LETS PUT ALL OF THEM IN THERE!" (aka the Geocities School of Style) and after after that was "OMG iPhone is kewl, lets make everything 20x sized so that people can rub their screens with ease (desktop? what desktop? that is sooo yesterday, and dying, get with the times grampah, today real programmers make web applications in their iPads while drinking latte soda cappuccinos and eating gluten free croissants at plate free coffee shops with hand demoisturized tables)".
I mean, early/mid 2000s design was still bad (especially when people learned about the gradient tool and drop shadow filter), but at least browsers were limited enough to mostly contain the damage.
I tend to agree, there is no reason to change the hn look and feel. If it were a corporate product it would have had a dozen product managers trying to make a name for themselves in redesigning it ad nauseum, just for the sake of change and advancing their own careers. Also see: Wikipedia (more or less), Craigslist, DuckDuckGo (I’ll defend that one), and scant few others. News sites like newspapers and large blogs are particularly egregious imo (but I think much of that is driven by demands for revenue by selling more ads and tracking).
I mean, early/mid 2000s design was still bad (especially when people learned about the gradient tool and drop shadow filter), but at least browsers were limited enough to mostly contain the damage.