Here is what I think, and we disagree strongly about this:
I think it goes entirely against the spirit of what HN is about. I may be wrong about that, but that's what I feel.
If you use your friends - and sockpuppets apparently - to cheat your way on to the front page as a long time and fairly visible member of the community then you are setting a very bad example.
It's true that plenty of 'good stuff' scrolls off the new page before it gets enough upvotes to make it to the homepage, but that's life, everybody takes their chances with that.
You are essentially changing it from a level playingfield in to a 'how many friends can I muster' game.
The fact that it isn't in the guidelines is not relevant, I think that you could easily work out for yourself that even if it isn't in the guidelines that this is not the way HN is supposed to work.
The same mechanism (bringing your friends along to flag an entry that you don't like) could be used for burying content.
I'd hate to see HN go down the drain the way digg did because of behaviour like this.
Ethics is not what's in the guidelines, ethics is knowing intuitively what is wrong and what is not and then living by that.
Lawyers read the guidelines and figure out how they can cheat without getting caught, nice people play by the rules even when they're unwritten.
edit: I completely fail to see what that link you added has to do with the price of tea in China.
edit2: I've posted an 'Ask HN' to get an idea about how others feel about this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1035206