The problem is that we seem to go from one soap opera (App Store 3.3.1) to the next soap opera (Faceboook privacy settings) with barely any break for sanity in between.
This might be a matter of recent circumstance. iPad release, Apple's new developer guidelines, Gizmodo iPhone scoop, the Facebook privacy hubbub, and Google IO happened one right after the other. We could just be experiencing an uncommonly dense (and hopefully short) sequence of sensational tech news events.
Or maybe pace of change is increasing.
Or we could be experiencing the future…
If you don't like it, the best way to do your part is to submit lots of great stories of the kind of stuff you'd like to see, and to upvote good stories in the "new" queue. If more people did this, the overall quality of the site would benefit.
I think there are too many stories, it's like a firehose. We should concentrate on killing more bad stores so the amount of stuff on Hacker News is a reasonable amount for someone to read.
Quality, not quantity.
I notice the patterns a lot because I frequently check HN, I'm sure the people who check only daily rarely actually see a pattern on a long basis. If it takes 2-3 readings of different subject articles to get your fill, we who check frequently have read all we want or need on Facebook Privacy Settings on Monday, however those who only check daily are only getting their fill on Wednesday.