Fascinating! Just to keep the conversation going, I'll argue that HN's current format works much better for me.

I appreciate newspaper formats when dozens of stories have roughly equal appeal to me, and I get value out of lingering on each one for 5-30 seconds before moving on.

HN, for me, is intensely bimodal. The bare-bones listing of headlines lets me skim very fast past the 93% that don't quite work for me -- and dive into the 7% that are today's gems. Those then deserve a close read and many minutes in the comments.

So I'd be very frustrated if HN switched to newspaper mode. But everyone's tastes are different, and having both formats available would be cool.