Yeah. HN is the first "social news" site I've been on with a strong editorial staff and with restrictions on users below certain levels of Karma. And I'd suspect that that's one of the things that keeps it at the level it's at.

The problem with democracy is that it is incredibly open to the possibility of quality and focus loss. Hacker News fixes those problems. And I'd argue that losing TechCrunch might be a good move.