How is it being too clever? That is one of my favorite things about the site. If you want to quickly check the comments, you can without leaving the page. If you want to open a few to check later, you can just Cmd/Ctrl+Click the comments link and it'll be on its own page.

It's clever because it's a fancy and inferior alternative to browser tabs. Comments always show up in a partial width sidebar: http://www.producthunt.com/posts/sprites