The answer to your question is "of course not". When stories are critical of YC or YC-funded companies, we moderate them less than we otherwise would. I've posted about this many times:
This isn't because YC doesn't care about HN's business value. It's because YC knows what HN's value consists of: the community's curiosity and trust. That's the global optimum, so that's what's in YC's interests. It would be foolish to optimize for anything else.
Though you've posted about it a lot I hadn't run across those comments yet - thanks for the links.