[mekwall]

That explains it all.

[robinduckett]

To be fair, using varnish and proper cache modules with drupal, you can make drupal very immune to this sort of traffic.

[mcrittenden]

Core Drupal caching can handle a lot (my blog has handled the top spot in HN a couple times with only that without issue), and adding Varnish alone can scale it to huge traffic levels. The GP comment is just FUD.