Unless I am mistaken, there are two changes: a) no points display and b) no downvote arrow for many of us. Both are good.

There used to be many responses triggered by consternation over downvotes. This way, most people can only upvote iff they resonate with the comment, without the possibility of jumping on a bandwagon (or trying to derail one)

Suggestion: Moving the comment box to the bottom would nudge people to scan the thread before responding, duplicating, etc.