I personally think that most of that off-topic content that you mentioned sucks to have here (even if I do enjoy it elsewhere), but despite my flagging, they still get up there. So, I visit HN less.
The majority has spoken, what else is there for me to say, really?
Exactly. It's not about if it's interesting to you... It is if it's interesting AND fits the purpose of HN.
Or, in the reduced form[2]: I found this interesting + I think this article would make other people think about this topic after reading it = I'm going to post this on Hacker News
Hacker News was previously called Startup News -- if you were around before July '07-ish. That was changed when the site was only a few months old. And you're kidding yourself if you don't think that HN changed since then. Maybe the next step is Amalgamated News? Who knows. To be honest? I doubt even pg knows for sure.
1. For whichever of the multitude of definitions of the word you prefer to use
2. From the guidelines: "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." - http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Emphasis mine.