To my mind a truncated page title taken from the page itself along with a subtitle provided by the submitter and optionally a user selected number of lines from the submission content itself would provided a more useful and informative page for triaging content one wishes to consume/discuss.
However it seems that moderation of titles isn't working so simply reverting to using the given page title created by the content creator is probably the best immediate option.
IMO a site like HN should be highly customisable. If I want page titles and you want the submitters titles and someone else wants only the head lines from the submitters content then why not. If you want votes hidden and I want them visible, why not. If you want votes weighted by longevity of the user and I want votes weighted by people I've upvoted, why not.
But that's not HN and primarily it's the corpus of people here rather than the site that generate the worth.