I refreshed this page, and only the new comments had the thick, lime green border, so it seems to be a way to show which comments got posted since one last viewed the page.
Yes. I think we should probably render all comments normally on your first visit to a page, and new comments as new on subsequent visits. I'll play with a new "new" comment style that doesn't eat more space.
Ah, so that was why my eyes hurt over the whole page! Much better once I refreshed. (Don't get me wrong, I do like highlighting new comments)
I saw some discussion posts earlier talking about a LessWrong redesign, and now that things look different, I guess that it's been implemented. I'm always slightly annoyed for a while when a site I use gets redesigned because I have to relearn where everything is, but it eventually wears off once I'm used to the changes.
My initial impressions:
"Hmmm... it seems like the category menus have been replaced by dropdown menus. It's not like I used many of them anyway."
"Okay, I've clicked my name to see my recently posted comments. Now, where's the link to see it in context? Oh, I guess I have to click that icon in the lower right corner. For some reason I was looking for something at the upper right of the comment box."
"Well, that worked. Now how do I click to the parent comment? Oh, wait, it's probably one of those new icons in the lower right corner. I'll just mouseover them to see what they do..."
::realization sets in::
"AAUGH! LESSWRONG IS USING MYSTERY MEAT NAVIGATION!!!"
So, what does everyone else think of the new redesign?