You seem to get a fair amount of upvotes. I basically think that things that 'really take off' are pretty random. I'd much rather hear people discuss "how to decide what to discard": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=144716 than Carr and Arrington bickering about IP: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=144105 (which was sort of interesting, but worth somewhere less than 10 points, IMO), but... so it goes.
Putting a comment on the article makes more people notice it, click on it, vote for it, and move it to the front page. Whenever I see a great science article, I make sure to comment on it so it get off the "Newest" page and on the front page. It takes surprisingly little, and then once it's on the front, it usually gets a lot of love.
I think it's funny that the highest rated one in the top 10 is the one I just submitted on a lark as an experiment.