On 2, I prefer it the way it is. If I want to go to the Hacker News index, I can click on "Hacker News", which is, after all, right there beside the YC logo.
A person might go there to find out things about YC. I mean, supporting YC is the ultimate purpose of the Hacker News application, after all.
In any case, YC is not a separate site: it's the parent site of this application. The logo is not the Hacker News logo, it's the YC logo, and should link to YC.
No, I'd argue that they are separate sites, though it is obvious that y combinator is affiliated, and it's linked at the bottom of the index page. Very rarely will users of hacker news want to go to ycombinator.com, so having the link in such a prominent position is a mistake.
Arc is a language implementation, not an application.
Optimization of language implementations is arguably never premature. When such an optimization translates to an application speedup, it's indisputably not premature.
If the change occurred over the weekend, I noticed it - thanks! I'm mostly using a satellite connection these days and those extra milliseconds saved are nice!
Possibly if requests are handled faster, there's less chance the thread that answers yours will be interrupted. A rendering of the front page is now a 30% smaller target.
When you have time, here's my wishlist:
1 Change password functionality
2 Make the "Y" logo at the top go to the hacker news index (I always accidentally click it and go to ycombinator.com)
3 Make the foot that is on the index page with links to Y Combinator, feature requests, etc, be standard on all pages.
Thanks!