I was pretty surprised to find this on the frontpage. I've noticed that the new page is a brutal place; anyone who had a twitter following (or a few friends) prepared to throw in a few votes right after submission would probably be guaranteed to front page and pick up enough visits to give the page a fair score.
In this case, I think submitter is more important than title - RiderOfGiraffes is very well-known and probably has his own version of the pg effect.
Yeah, that doesn't really work in the long run. I organize the Toronto HN Nights, and even though a whole bunch of us upvoted TOHNN 2, it languished. I assume that we were caught in a vote ring (because naturally people from Toronto consistently upvote anything to do with Toronto). In my opinion the title is much more important than having a few friends.
In this case, I think submitter is more important than title - RiderOfGiraffes is very well-known and probably has his own version of the pg effect.