I appreciate the time you took to write this. Of course I could figure out every single feature if I spent a T time on it. And of course sometimes I've just used the focus-on-content-only approach. But, my point is that when I look at it, it just seems too much over-engineered. Maybe UI-wise only? Maybe feature wise too? I don't know! And if I had to know, it meant that I had to go through it, which is exactly what I don't want to be required to when getting accustomed with an environment!

Ask yourself, if you were to implement a new Reddit, would you make it like it is now? I would simplify it a lot.

Maybe it's not the perfect example but for a complexity-wise comparison, consider StackOverflow. It is complex and it covers a lot of tiny details. Sometimes I'm just really amazed at how well every little single feature is designed. But it never gets in your way. Every "hey-you-should-know-this" only comes up when really necessary, making a new user's familiarization process a very progressive experience.

If both those sites were Swiss Army knives, to me Reddit would present itself with all of its non-standard weird mini-tools opened up, to the point where while I'd be looking for the one I need, I would be asking myself "why I'm being told that I need this or that ?", while StackOverflow would show up with all tools closed, and would still impress me at letting me find exactly what I need when I need it, and sometimes would even surprise me, showing up a pleasantly and unexpected augmentated version of that...

I go for the second type :)