I agree, but HN isn't really a "website", it's closer to an application: you don't really have documents. The ideal interface to have HN functionality is Usenet

I agree, but HN isn't really a "website", it's closer to an application: you don't really have documents. The ideal interface to have HN functionality is Usenet, or maybe mailing lists: you have many people exchanging messages about a specific subjects, quoting and replying to each other, all in very hierarchichal threads. It's only because HTTP is so widespread that HN uses that, but if it weren't I would bet we wouldn't even be talking about javascript.