There are times I miss public vote counts. While it's nice to assess someone's position just on its merit, it's also useful to factor in how much popular support that opinion has. If I disagree with a position that looks well-endorsed by the community, maybe I should take a second look at the topic and whether my minority position is really correct.
Anecdotally, it also feels like HN has much more prolific hard-line extreme sentiments in the years since hiding comment vote counts. People arguing from a position of ideology rather than constructive pursuit of goals. There could be any number of reasons for that, but I'd bet at least a little of it is that now it's harder to look at an extreme opinion and a moderate one and gauge which (if either) represents broader community sentiment.
The HN community has seemed to broadly support the removal of vote counts; whatever drawbacks the decision has, consensus appears to be that it's a good move.
It also has the negative impact of discouraging people from voicing their opinion.
What I really like about HN is that I could be reading opinions from leaders in the topic field, or someone who is just a hobbyist in the field, without really knowing it. And I get to make my voting decision based on the quality of the content alone.
A possible feature is, per-thread, giving commenters the option of viewing karma for posts, but doing so prevents them from being able to participate in the discussion. I'm not sure how much I like this idea, and it's likely too fiddly for HN's style.
Also, I’m not stalking you gambiting. We just seem to turn up in the same places already. >.>