That's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how well it would work in practice. Maybe I'm weird, but I find that making things look nice (whether via improved formatting or the addition of pictures) helps to draw readers' attention, it doesn't actually help get any more information across.

I read all your articles that make it to HN, despite never understanding a damn word. I doubt some pictures would fix that ;)

Merely making things look nice won't help, but sometimes things like dataflow diagrams can convey information more quickly and clearly than just words — maybe especially to people who are particularly visually oriented.

Fair enough -- if someone wants to start drawing diagrams, I'd be happy to talk cryptography / security to them. :-)

It isn't about more information, but a different presentation of the same to help those with different learning styles.