Ask HN: One comment to rule them all?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that the first comment to get up-voted and gain some momentum on a post usually stays there and dominates the post indefinitely.

It has a negative impact on my experience here at HN because people drop off when they have to scroll all the way to the bottom to read other interesting commentary. A lot of HNers don't even bother to scroll down and get wrapped up in the dominant comment.

The one solution I thought of was to split the comment threads vertically down the middle. The left pane showing the top comment and the right pane showing the 2nd most dominant comment. It wouldn't solve the problem completely but it would certainly make it easier to parse for my reptilian brain.

Thoughts/ideas?