My dad finds sites like Reddit/Digg/HN totally overwhelming, and I doubt he's alone. It's generational. Sites like NYT use standard design techniques to direct your attention (font size, etc) that work really well for people that are more-accustomed to traditional media. And, frankly, seeing a huge-headline is a much more-immediate way to indicate the importance of a topic than scanning down a list and looking for stories with lots of upvotes or comments.