I feel much the same way but I'd like to add some support for having the former type of content on HN.
You do get a large response of unqualified opinions, anecdotes and repetitive arguments/flamewars but, amongst the 'noise', you can roughly cluster voices, average out within clusters and get an idea of the range of (mostly) intellectual opinions held.
This 'fuzzy' information won't be neatly laid out as with the atemporal articles but to me it acts almost like a primary resource surveying what the HN community (whatever that represents in reality) believes at a point in time.
You do get a large response of unqualified opinions, anecdotes and repetitive arguments/flamewars but, amongst the 'noise', you can roughly cluster voices, average out within clusters and get an idea of the range of (mostly) intellectual opinions held.
This 'fuzzy' information won't be neatly laid out as with the atemporal articles but to me it acts almost like a primary resource surveying what the HN community (whatever that represents in reality) believes at a point in time.