Hacker News Restyled

HN is a side project which does have a business purpose for Y-combinator in that they require applicants to have an HN account (and if you don't have one, you have to create one to fill out the application) and Paul Graham (if not others) will check your comments/make a mental note if they recognize you/some such when reading through your application. However, since it doesn't directly make money and is a free service (with a much, much larger membership than just the YC applicants), it gets whatever time and energy Paul Graham can spare. So restyling it is not a high priority.

There are a number of "themes" which have been written by members that you can add on top of it, if you care to. For example: http://blog.vezquex.com/dark-and-wide-user-style-for-hacker-...

You can always search the site for others to find something you like (or write your own if you have such skills). But I get the impression that HN itself is unlikely to be overhauled any time soon in that regard.