I'd be curious if you'd read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48887149 and let me know (once I've finished editing the damn thing) how this changes, or doesn't change, your response.

I think that is really reasonable. I’ve always felt weird with flagging too because there’s no reason attached. Even if it’s not displayed in the UI, it would be nice to have something in the html if a link gets enough flags for ai. Would let people css filter them out.

It didn’t change my opinion, which matches OP’s.