To anyone who spends any significant amount of time on here, it is apparent that timing, rather than the quality of the link, decides whether or not something reaches the front page.
I wonder what would change if, say, all submissions within a time interval (like one hour) were collected and then posted all at once, at the top of the hour, in random order.
That's definitely interesting. Maybe if a random selection of links posted in high volume periods didn't show up until low volume periods, smoothing out the curve?
How would that affect flagging?
The random posting order could allow the "most objectionable" of all new articles to appear further down the list and last a bit longer than it might have otherwise. I think people watching the new-list will still be thorough; if something shouldn't be posted, it will be flagged eventually.