"It seems like if you want your post to be seen, and actually voted on, you have little choice but to try and game the system."

There's an alternative. Posting good content. Sure, good content doesn't guarantee upvotes and collusion does. But colluding doesn't provide the feedback that teaches a person how to distinguish good content from mediocre, or good submission timing from poor submission timing.

That's assuming of course that someone thinks those things matter. I am not sure that they really do, except in so far as they matter more than karma points - particularly those gleaned from submitting other people's work rather than writing one's own comments.

I'll admit I'm probably out of touch, since my mental model doesn't really include the elements that fret over submissions making the front page. That's probably because I focus on writing, which is less about luck and more about skill.

It's not that I think the mechanics of HN are perfect: It's that I think HN is not broken.