Although I agree with what you're saying sometimes spending more time on eye candy than the actual design can be useful.
Eye candy doesn't help the user with navigation or add functionality but it can make a website look more professional and in-turn more trustworthy.
For e commerce websites getting the users trust is an important consideration and I'd argue eye candy is maybe just as important as the design.
Of course in the case of Hacker News I wouldn't like to see this kind of redesign implemented and would prefer the focus of the site's design to be solely on improving it's functionality and usability.
Eye candy doesn't help the user with navigation or add functionality but it can make a website look more professional and in-turn more trustworthy.
For e commerce websites getting the users trust is an important consideration and I'd argue eye candy is maybe just as important as the design.
Of course in the case of Hacker News I wouldn't like to see this kind of redesign implemented and would prefer the focus of the site's design to be solely on improving it's functionality and usability.