If you want to focus on marketing tricks / media hype / "content" / that kind of thing, you're going to hear the above repeatedly, since those are neither (1) nor (2). For my part this reflects well on YC. In fact it's a little reassuring to hear that this is what (some) people are complaining about. If you're a YC startup and want to launch on HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/launches) you're going to hear even more of it from me.
I like this part: "present dry facts—how much money customers already paid you, what the size of the market, if you count all the units you can sell, what you have actually built and what is working today." On the HN side we also push for "just the facts" and urge founders to cut hype and marketing speak. That's as much about the HN audience as core values, but it's nice (and for me a relief) that those overlap.
If building a valuable product, talking to users, and focusing on facts sounds good to you, you should consider applying to YC.
(feel free to discount this to zero based on my bias but I wanted to say it anyway!)