I personally prefer the current version - I don't like big images on front pages, I consider them a useless waste of precious screen space.

But I'm aware that my point of view on those things tend to not be shared by most people, and for the home page what matters is more "most people" or at least "most people who potentially would care about LW", so... as long as accessibility is there (blind people can access it, ...) I don't oppose it, just personally dislike it.