Not to try and "King Solomon" it, but couldn't you make it a user profile option to display comment points?
Personally, I think it's better now that they are not displayed, but if it reverts back to displaying them, I'd be happy to just not have to see them myself, regardless if other's want to.
Making an option is a tempting choice, but as always the devil is in the defaults. In the limit case you get things like Linux apps with umpteen million options, and still no one is happy.
Conceptually, I agree with you; but your HN profile isn't like setting up a Wordpress installation. There's a pretty minimal amount of things which can be tweaked.
It sounds diplomatic to let each group choose their preference, but what is much more valuable here is to learn what exactly those preferences are, and why they are held. If there were an option to let each choose according to their preference, then we could all quietly revert to our preferences instead of taking the opportunity to be confronted with a bigger picture.
I'm not so sure there is a bigger picture, just a bunch of people who each get different things out of reading/posting here on the site. Look at any of the comments on the articles about this so far, and you get the what and the why (people's reasons seem to run the gamut).
But let's postulate that we revert back to the previous system where comment points are displayed. I can't think of a reason why it would matter if I personally don't want to see comment points.
Personally, I think it's better now that they are not displayed, but if it reverts back to displaying them, I'd be happy to just not have to see them myself, regardless if other's want to.