I don't believe HD wallets are relevant to the privacy problem with Bitcoin. Even with simple wallets combining inputs from multiple addresses proves that a single person owned all the addresses included.
Whatever marketing gimmick and fancy new wallet system they come up, it probably won't matter in the future if its not totally useless already. The blockchain is a public and permanent record of everyones transactions. Besides the fact that one would have to be 100% anonymous for each and every transaction, 100% of the time to remain untraceable, this means no space for any mistake in the past or in the far outreaching future for one using Bitcoin. If some agency wants to they will eventually connect the dots from enough public and private databases. Bitcoin was not made to be private, it is a nightmare waiting to happen.

Holy "taint analysis" batman!

I'm a Monero holder but I've been reading about HD wallets lately and I'm wondering why tech like CryptoNote is necessary when HD wallets change the address every time they send or receive.

Anyone who has the skills to leave no trace of his crypto usage, can either:

a) not accomplish anything since no trace may be left;
b) not stay under the radar due to he is so skilled that he's certainly on the list already.

Try another frontier. Such as questioning the legitimacy of the whole charade. Bruce Fenton said he went on offensive when a cop was trying to fill his ticket quota with him, making the cop admit that he's on the morally losing side, but needs to get his family fed. In this case, at the expense of another family of 6.

Can those addresses/transactions be linked to each other by examining the blockchain?

Monero's 1 year birthday is approaching on April 18, 2015. How do you guys want to celebrate?

All I want is a way to pay for cam girls without my wife potentially finding out--is that too much to ask?