If there was too much transparency marketers would try to game the system. It works well enough the way it is. But I have observed that stories in which the comments are unproductive or too heated tend to rank lower.
Just found one.<p>Haven't been able to search Show HN in a thorough timeline, in order of submission, starting with current submissions going back very far at all.<p>"show" doesn't do it, "past" doesn't either.