I also want to suggest that it might be interesting to have some non-numeric display that still allows for the 'quick scan' that you mention.
I also dislike the lack of points because I find myself voting things down more than I would before. In the past, if something were at 0 or -1 points, usually I'd think, "They probably get the point." Now I find myself downvoting things that probably don't need one more down vote.
>>I also want to suggest that it might be interesting to have some non-numeric display that still allows for the 'quick scan' that you mention.
I agree with this, may be displaying a color coded dot in place of the comment score. The color can be computed from a log function of the score, and we only need a few colors to indicate the different types of comments without giving too much information away.
I also dislike the lack of points because I find myself voting things down more than I would before. In the past, if something were at 0 or -1 points, usually I'd think, "They probably get the point." Now I find myself downvoting things that probably don't need one more down vote.