I agree that we need to keep contrast in mind when designing, but too much contrast can be just as hard on the eyes. That cream on black text hurts my eyes more than most of the low-contrast sites that it highlights. Furthermore, putting shadows on an entire block of text is terrible for legibility. As a site focusing heavily on legibility, it could certainly use some fine-tuning in its typography and color.

I will agree that many of these sites, including this DN site, need to work on contrast and legibility and contrast.

I like how HN is actually one of the low-contrast examples and the comment you're replying to is complaining about contrast.

Here's a good example of what they mean:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711

This is hard to read. I'd guess PG may have decided to keep it this way so users don't post too many (long) messages.

I found that interesting as well.