Reasoned disagreement is obviously easier to deal with than emotional attacks, but topics that incite emotional responses are arguably the most important ones to keep visible - they expose the most contentious points of disagreement in a community. It's certainly true that these angry discussions contain little of value in themselves, but the fact that they exist is valuable. A better compromise would be to limit further comments once a discussion has become overly vitriolic, not to disappear the story that sparked the anger.
That's not why Hacker News exists. It's to share and discuss things hackers find interesting. It got as popular and important as it is for a reason, and a piece of that reason are the rules that people now are complaining about. There are other places on the internet to vent your outrage.
Hackers clearly find these topics interesting - they get upvoted and spark debate. The problem is that if they spark excessively acrimonious debate, the topic gets treated as if it wasn't interesting in the first place. The stated aim is to avoid flamewars, not to avoid making people aware of controversial topics.
I don't find it valuable for these topics to be visible - that's why I flag them.
The site is this way because this way works; it's not like there aren't dozens of other sites with different policies out there on the internet. And yet for some reason we prefer to come here.
You can debate about emotional topics, but you need a really active group of moderators. HN's moderators, for good or for ill, seem completely invisible, except when someone is quietly struck by lightning and is hellbanned.
