On the plus side, you get feedback, as opposed to the deathly silence of the Internet.
On the minus side, asking people to populate the web with criticism of your efforts seems the opposite of marketing triumph. Transparent, open to feedback, good. Getting ripped in public, not good.
What sayest thou?
Also, If the general population becomes interested enough in your site to spend the time hunting down an old unflattering HN thread then you've already won.
all those can be answered well here, but for general advice on a site aimed at non technical users you are far better asking friends and family. I'll put up with a clunky site, with poor text/design, if the site does what I want. most non technical users won't.
I see the same issue here a lot with people building sites to fix anothers supposed problem (tool to do x) without it being a tool they would use, or a problem they really understand, and without asking if others would look to solve that problem online.
In any case, when you ask for a review you better expect a mix bag.
The HN community provides insightful & quality feedback that would otherwise be provided by a user.
To me, it's a no-brainer. The benefits substantially outweigh the costs.
Generally this feedback is for stages when people are not marketing yet.