Well, for one; the site is basically an engine for rendering out <table><tr><td><a> ..., without much in the way of complex and frequent client-side requests.

Well, for one; the site is basically an engine for rendering out <table><tr><td><a> ..., without much in the way of complex and frequent client-side requests. (this isn't to downplay the challenges faced by scaling a site with the amount of traffic HN gets)