I suppose you've noticed that answers with more votes appear higher in the presentation of the answers.

I hadn't noticed that - since I haven't voted on very many answers, I don't know how they are ranked, so I didn't see that pattern (this is part of the problem I'm pointing out here). Or is it stated somewhere that I didn't see? If that is, in fact, part of the design of the section, as a way to let the reader know which answers are more highly regarded, I think it should be plainly stated somewhere that people will see it.

I think naChoZ made a good suggestion about having a reply count, as well as better visual separation between the answers...

Thanks for listening!