>many links don't look like links (because they're black or gray, like the rest of the text)
I strongly agree with this. I see that mouse-over styling is being used for links. I think links should be always formatted in a way that makes it obvious that they are links. In other words, I like the old-fashioned way of having persistent link underlines, or one could do what Wikipedia and others do and make all links consistently blue text, which seems to work well enough.
Honestly I find this a bit distracting. I'm not opposed to adding underlines in a few places - perhaps anywhere that the links don't convey their nature with the blue color would be a good compromise. What do you think?
I don't find it distracting. It is a bit ugly, though. I like ugly-but-functional UI, but I understand not everyone does.
The advantage is that I can see clearly what is clickable. For example, I did not realise the relative timestamps ("a day ago", "an hour ago") were links until I saw your altered screenshots with the underlines.
maybe use a slightly darker blue and a lighter weight underline that wouldn't contrast quite as much? (i'm not a designer so take that for what it's worth)
I strongly agree with this. I see that mouse-over styling is being used for links. I think links should be always formatted in a way that makes it obvious that they are links. In other words, I like the old-fashioned way of having persistent link underlines, or one could do what Wikipedia and others do and make all links consistently blue text, which seems to work well enough.