In theory, centrally planned things make a lot of sense. In practice, democracy usually comes to a better solution, even if it is not perfect. HN is driven by

In theory, centrally planned things make a lot of sense. In practice, democracy usually comes to a better solution, even if it is not perfect. HN is driven by votes, the community is getting what the majority wants right now. The only way to really improve HN is to change or limit the community. You can tweak the rules only to limit certain actions to high-kharma users, but if there is pent up demand for some kind of story it will make its way to the front page.