So, the Islamic Terrorist Opens Fire on Florida Nightclub; 50 Killed, 53 Wounded [soylentnews.org] story is up over 400 comments and loading slower than hell. We finally managed to find ourselves a limit to comments under the current code. There's a fix going to be coming in the upcoming site update but for now there are two workarounds; take your pick.
The latter solution gives you 5-10 root level comments and all their children not 5-10 comments total. It also allows you to keep using the javascript expand/collapse buttons if you were.