Asking people what they want isn't necessarily the best way to give them what they want. Remember the Henry Ford line, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would've said faster horses." PG has mentioned this before as well in response to requests for UI improvement on HN. I don't remember the exact words, but people were saying things like, "If there was any other site that had the quality of HN and better UI, I would go there," and PG's reply was that the reason the was no site that had the same quality and better UI is because he spends time worrying about quality instead of worrying about UI.