An alternative would be to collapse 2nd level comments and below. You choose which thread to get involved with by clicking in. There's probably a greasemonkey script that does this.
That's how I read the site without any help from the UI, I don't find it to be that big of a deal. If there are more than ~5 comments on a topic, I will scan all the top level comments first to get a feel for the conversations and then dive into what I want to read.
That's how I read the site without any help from the UI, I don't find it to be that big of a deal. If there are more than ~5 comments on a topic, I will scan all the top level comments first to get a feel for the conversations and then dive into what I want to read.