I agree - digg has a fairly elegant design that's easy on the eye, without being obstructive. I don't think hacker news would suffer a great deal if a :little: more attention was paid to visual design. It doesn't really matter, I think people come here for the content, and that's fine.
Rater than comparing hn with digg, the comparison I saw somewhere was with http://www.newspond.com/ - an example of a site that looks nice (if you like gradients and glasy, round corners), at the expense of usability (only 3 posts per screen height etc). The first time I visited it, I was genuinely impressed by what they've archived, visually. But I've never been back since.
Rater than comparing hn with digg, the comparison I saw somewhere was with http://www.newspond.com/ - an example of a site that looks nice (if you like gradients and glasy, round corners), at the expense of usability (only 3 posts per screen height etc). The first time I visited it, I was genuinely impressed by what they've archived, visually. But I've never been back since.