I find "anything that good hackers would find interesting" kind of problematic. Good hackers according to who? Paul Graham? Silicon Valley capitalist culture? Please be more specific.
Also from HN's guidelines: "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
So these are open for interpretation.
Stories that take us off the beaten track into the wild are the rare earth elements of HN, and we can never get enough of them. There's a strong tendency for everything to homogenize on a small number of hot topics. Those are exciting, but to let them crowd out the quieter, odder material is not how to optimize HN's long-term interestingness. We think it's great to have stories on the front page that defy expectation, and we consciously moderate HN to protect those when we see signs of community interest in them.
Of course people disagree greatly about what counts as interesting, but hey, if one oddball story bores you, another may hit the spot. Keep HN weird.
I know everyone's afraid of the conversations deteriorating to the point that they no longer want to come here, but you can go the other direction with that too. You can regulate it so much that no one wants to come post or read.
I think there's a reasonable balance between the two (where that balance lies is something that many will surely disagree about also -- :-D ).
And, for the record, I could have lived without the Pee Wee Herman story also.