I appreciate original version of HN more. As compared to other content platforms, I come to HN to actually read and just not to scroll. From that pov, I like text better than other elements visible to me. More than that, the current design took too much space, showing 1 post per scroll.

One suggestion for your website is to accommodate heading on left half of the screen (desktop view) coz usually most of the people have a mental model of trying to find heading first and reading from L2R.