Agreed that right now its positioning is too prominent: at the row-end it's easier to see and click than other more frequently-used links. The problem is especially evident on the front page: it was rare for spam to reach there, but now it's harder to visually target every 'comments' link.

Moving 'flag' leftward on the line would help a bit. Making it only appear on the clikthrough page for an individual story or comment would help a lot -- requiring an extra click to flag something but not imposing clutter on all good contributions.

At some point anti-crime measures themselves become a community bummer. 'Flag' links everywhere are a little like walking through a neighborhood where all the windows/doorways are protected by metal bars.

What percentage of our attention is soaked up by defense? Over a certain threshold and the spamorrists have "won".