Other than someone buying it for the prestige, I doubt that HN is worth much in itself. Other than email addresses, there is no data of value to mine that I can think of.

The only way to make money without digging the site's grave is to give a boost to posts advertising something. It has to be done infrequently and in a very subtle way so the users don't notice, and they will have a hard time finding advertisers without people finding out that they do it.

So yeah, I don't think its really worth it.