It's been this way for as long as I can remember. I like it. HN is the only place where you can submit something and have it hit the front page in a few minutes

It's been this way for as long as I can remember. I like it. HN is the only place where you can submit something and have it hit the front page in a few minutes. It feels much more "real-time" than something like Digg or even Reddit. Combine that with the strong spam filtering and fast moderation, and you have a winning formula. If something lame hits the front page, you can expect it will be [dead]ed quick.