I agree with you: HN time-outs and failures (which also occur on reading) are an unnecessary pain. This is one reason you should never write into a web text box (a rule I also fail to adhere to). But really even "modern application grade" web stuff is so flakey if you value your text you write it in a local editor and then copy/paste later.
With this rule in mind, I wonder if a textures / notes area would be a good feature to include in the web browser itself (including mobile browsers) ...
