Tracking on this; I am not alone on the team or community here, but I agree with everything you said. I don’t like nor want that in your face, featured, hot ranking content. I want to go view the content that I want and sometimes that is reviewing the discussion I had 3 weeks ago with new eyes and information. I prefer a community like that, but I also really enjoy something like HackerNews. No clutter, presents quality information that’s relevant, and only a few flamewars.