I think this is great as an option where we can fill in our own threshold. It's another way to play with the feed. I prefer the "newest" setting myself. It's incredibly quick to scan the headlines to see what I'm in the mood for that day. Or I can search with "news.ycombinator.com: searchterm" if I'm looking some particular subject matter. But sometimes it's fun to visit the lists too. news.ycombinator.com/lists Perhaps a couple of those options should go on the top menu.

Maybe the top menu should be Hacker News new 100+ searchterm best active bestcomments etc.