If the 100K investment makes business sense and results in a positive outcome (profit or increased market share etc), then it's the right price regardless of whether you could have bought another domain cheaper. Buy, profit, move on to the next task on the list...
Not sure what "settings" have to do with this. The point being made in the post is that if trivial, "expected" features are missing, users wont even bother to look further.
Not sure what all the comments about the "amazing 3D" are about. Apple's 3D maps implementation is infinitely better (not that 3D maps are in the slightest bit useful...)
Of course. I'm not suggesting that there should be any limitations on who can join, but as the community moves more mainstream, quality will dilute. As the site is rather un-sexy right now, it seems to attract those who are genuinely interested. Remember what happened to Digg...
I suspect there's good reason why HN is still using this old codebase. YC after all is not short of the cash needed for a complete revamp.
The site is very much hacked together, but works... In a lot of ways, this reflects the hacker ethos of getting something up and running quickly at low cost while still producing value.
A revamp might have negative impact too by attracting a wider, more mainstream audience which could possibly dilute the purity of the community here.
(Including some 360 degree video: http://www.sphericalimages.com/videos )