It's definitely relevant here on HN -- a good article with a bad title probably won't go anywhere. A good article with a great title will stay on the front page for hours.
That's the main downside to HN's "don't rename the article" policy I think; it keeps people from editorializing the submissions, but favors submissions from publications that already chose more linkbaity titles to begin with.
Also perhaps a downside of not having Slashdot-style summaries, in that it encourages blogspam. If I find an interesting academic paper that I think HN might like, just submitting it by itself rarely goes anywhere, because there isn't space to explain why I think it's of interest to HN. Oddly enough it actually stands a better chance on Reddit, because you have about one sentence worth of space in the submission title to explain it. On HN, it's better if you reblog the paper with a one- or two-paragraph blurb, catchy title, and then submit that instead of the original paper. People will then complain that you submitted blogspam instead of the original, but most of the time they'll upvote it more than they would've upvoted the original despite the complaints.
I would like it if HN included a short description field, so that I'm not clicking articles with opaque linkbaity titles like "Stop fucking coding", and "You're killing yourself".
