It's been very interesting, and part of that is my fault - been posting a lot here instead of reddit (when I should probably just post nowhere). The vote counts seem crazy high this week, even for typical stories.

I will say that I haven't noticed a decline in quality of posts; not sure if that's due to a strong culture or strict moderation. I suppose most of the Reddit refugees only browse the HN homepage, so HN veterans still have an out sized impact on the New page, which in turn dictates what can reach the top.