Reddit does this pretty well, they often feature a submission with a dot instead of the number of votes. Perhaps HN could randomly put a thread at the top without showing votes.
I believe Reddit does this for the first X hours of a submissions life - to discourage bandwagons, and so that newer submissions that may otherwise be overlooked (due to having less initial upvotes) will get a chance. I agree that it's a good idea and something that may work well on HN's new page.