Also, showing the excerpts from the post text is vastly superior to just showing the post titles.

I currently work on a feature to show excerpts (and read time) in the list views as well. But I will wait with the deployment until the Hacker News visitor wave has calmed down.

> and read time

If anything, I would recommend a word count instead.

Word count is objective. Read time is subjective, variable, just an estimate, and probably based on word count anyway.

You can try with https://hackertimes.com/best

This is the best for me (pun intended). Less overwhelming than the default front page. And more discussion.

Would love a version of this on HN.

also

https://hckrnews.com

for a slightly different take on the concept