The technical side of the redesign is impressive, merging 100k posts since 1990s across 12 databases and 17 blogs into 1 WordPress install (@MarcusWohlsen )
I'm a little mystified as to why they chose WordPress, though. It doesn't strike me as the kind of platform you'd want to build a... well, a platform on.
I agree that the share icons (and the right column) are irritaring (especially how they disappear and reappear when you scroll past full-width images), but I think the text column is kept narrow intentionally.
It has become a rule of thumb that ~680px is the sweet spot for text column widths, since it makes it easier to read. I'm not sure how much actual research that has gone into text column widths, but I know there has been some.
It's not 680px per se that's effective; it's the legibility of 60-80 characters per line.
Sadly, it seems like the new Wired article pages have the body type at a character width of around 50 on average, so it falls just a hair short of that ideal window. Removing the social share icons would likely bring it into that window, ironically.
As someone who's working on a major replatforming for another news media site, I feel Wired's pain on this.
