There's very little you can do to reverse the tide. As the site grows in popularity, the initial focus gets diluted. It's funny that you mention HN becoming a

There's very little you can do to reverse the tide. As the site grows in popularity, the initial focus gets diluted. It's funny that you mention HN becoming a Reddit clone. When Reddit first began, the articles there were actually very much like HN, since the early adopters were techies. And as Reddit became more mainstream, HN was created for just the techie subgroup (this was before subreddits were possible). And now the cycle is happening again, where HN is becoming more mainstream. For me, the solution is to discover other communities that have the tighter focus I'm looking for. Personally, I'm interested in SaaS. So the forums at discuss.bootstrapped.fm have been very useful to me. So my suggestion is to find other communities that are important to you, and spend some time there as well. In the similar fashion that many migrated from Reddit to HN.