HN is not one voice. Lots of people here admire his work.
For what it's worth, I'm an HN user and hold Drew and his work in very high regard.
He has over 25k karma on here. The data doesn't fit your assertion.
I'm not worthy of high opinion yet I also have ~25k karma. Karma matters less than you think.
Well, I'm not suggesting HN karma is some kind of indicator of merit, only that it's the best indicator we have of whether someone's held in a high opinion on HN, which is what GGP was talking about.