Interestingly, I _think_ the Reddit algorithm basically makes this mistake too -- although embedded in a more complicated algorithm that combines with 'newest first' altered by positives minus negatives.
I don't think the HN algorithm is public, but wouldn't be surprised if it does the same.
Perhaps the generally much smaller number of 'votes' on a HN/reddit post makes it less significant.
For posts, I'm not sure what the algorithm is (I think it's deliberately more complicated, and has to take into account time of posting?), but after this article [the op] was written, reddit implemented the method for comments, as explained by Randall Munroe: http://www.redditblog.com/2009/10/reddits-new-comment-sortin...
You only get this ranking method if you sort the comments by 'best' though
I don't think the HN algorithm is public, but wouldn't be surprised if it does the same.
Perhaps the generally much smaller number of 'votes' on a HN/reddit post makes it less significant.