People come here for the submissions (on-topic, non-fluff, genuine upvotes) and discussion (civil, educational, interesting). To create a superior HN you would

People come here for the submissions (on-topic, non-fluff, genuine upvotes) and discussion (civil, educational, interesting). To create a superior HN you would have to improve on those features first or it's a non-starter. It's unlikely you could improve on those though. HN has network effects (i.e. HN is popular because HN is popular). Unless PG drops the ball with HN, by letting it get overrun with poor content for example, there's just not much room for a competitor, and that doesn't seem likely.