I understand that writing a substantive comment can be a lot of work, but how can we be arguing about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35351862? It was obviously unsubstantive and provocative, and would even probably land as a personal attack. It was even a case of the "vapid and cliché" that you're wanting to counteract.

Downvoting a bad comment is fine. Not posting is fine. If you want to neutrally let someone know that their comment isn't substantive enough for a good HN post, that's ok as long as you're careful how you do it. Dropping an insult on them is never helpful.