[aswerty]

Just to add my 2c.

About a year ago, someone submitted us to PH after I had submitted our site to Show HN. We ended up as the second highest product of the day. I didn't even know we'd been submitted until my co-founder mentioned it (him thinking I had actually been the one behind it). Ultimately we got around 3k to 4k visitors from PH over a space of 3 or 4 days.

So while there may be examples of it being fixed that doesn't mean there isn't significant numbers of startups - with no inside connections - getting a bit limelight from it.