It seems significant to me. There are a lot of users on HN whose default move is to criticize whatever story just made the main page. Maybe that's not the best default position.
Paul Graham also mentioned somewhere that he's been collecting examples of "middlebrow dismissal" as a common kind of default response, in an attempt to understand/combat the phenomenon.
The real value, for me in HN, is on topics where real discussions take place and other users are able to produce more information on topics, not so much where highly rated, articulate power users grace us with their opinions.