It doesn’t matter if the most upvoted comment is pro or against subject in discussion. All that matters is bolstering a comment that is minimally compatible with participant’s thinking and making it win against the opposite argument (competing and most voted one).
So it seems that the most satisfactory comment (for most readers) doesn’t really matter at all. What matters, before anything else, is visibility of an opinion that somewhat aligns with one’s thinking, rather than writing or finding the most corresponding comment for that subject, fully compatible with reader’s perception.
Sorting by new ends up creating a group that just picks winners and losers for those who don’t. Hence “the knights of new” with their disingenuous framing that they were doing a public service. All they were really doing, whether they knew it or not, was picking which snowballs get to roll and which don’t.
Most, if not all, have to sort by new or it just trades issues.