This wasn't my idea (someone else had posted it), but I think it would be nice to see the usernames fade from grey to green as the comment score increases (maybe capping at 10 or 15). That way, one can quickly scan and see the best comments, but there isn't such a direct relationship as a numerical score. For example, the username could go through these steps:

004400
005500
006600
. . .
00EE00
00FF00

That way one can even faster pick out things that people have generally agreed is of good value, but it isn't immediately obvious what the exact score is - there's a fuzzyness to it - and there's also a cap on the displayed score (in that you can't get more green than 00FF00 and starting at 004400 would cap it at 12).

It fits my use cases which are skimming for good comments and figuring out if something I don't know much about has value (for example, if someone says, "they should have done it this way. . .", it can act as a barometer of the suggestion's value). It also seems like it would be easy enough to implement.

I'm not going to vote on the poll because I've actually found that the level of discussion has felt better without the votes shown. I enjoy the site more for the reason you've cited. Not to psycho-analyze too much, but the lack of vote scores removes the pressure to have the best comment or a better score than someone that has a different perspective. Even if two people are being totally respectful to start with, it can become psychologically difficult when the other person is getting more votes. One might try to make it a debate (that they're trying to win against the other person) more than a discussion (in which two parties are trying to figure out the truth together).

However, the site has become a bit less utilitarian and it sometimes does take me longer to weed through the information in the thread. Maybe varying the color of the usernames based on the comment score (and capping at 12) would add some limitations and fuzzyness to it that would meld the two. Capping at 12 would mean that both parties arguing might get the same public presentation of 00FF00 and that might quell the need for parties to prove that they're the winner of the argument by popular vote. Likewise, humans don't perceive colors exactly and that might add another layer that would diminish people comparing themselves so much and trying to score points. I guess I think it would be interesting to see if this would be a nice balance.

Example: A person posts that they think VPSs are better for hosting than renting a physical box and they talk about their reasoning (machine images that you can bring up more boxes of, launching new instances within minutes, whatnot) and it's a good comment. Someone replies espousing the virtues of physical hardware (a tad more speed, not sharing IO, whatnot). Now it becomes a bit of a competition between the two ideas (and the two posters). They were both good, valuable comments about different approaches. There is no right answer and there might not even be a better answer. The community knows this and both have comment scores above 12, but each person feels pressure to "win". With the green usernames, they're both at 00FF00 and have no idea if the community has given the other person more votes. There's no need to score points off each other or need to defend one's ego. You know you've made a valuable contribution and the other person has also, but for all you know they've gotten a good fewer votes than you. It still allows everyone reading the two comments to know that they're both generally good advice. So, there isn't a fight and an on-looker can see that both comments should be read and headed.