Yeah, this was my biggest issue--especially in the side-by-sides, it is just so much easier to read the text on the old site, black on orange. The white-on-orange thing in the navbar is terrible.

I know that the only people these days browsing HN are nutropic-fed paleo startup bros that are killing it when they're not in the box, but for some of us fat C++ neckbeards with bad vision many web design trends are pretty inconvenient.

EDIT: Thanks for the downvotes...now my post is similar in font to the proposed design. :(