RE: Why did a post telling people to report bugs make 3,000 USD in upvotes and my actual post about a legitimate security issue that the developers directly thanked me get less than 100 USD?
I thought your post was great and I upvoted it. I do make it a point to look through new submissions every day and keep looking until past the point where I get bored. So I was able to see your post by coincidence.
I think the key to getting spotted at the moment is a combination of content and marketing.
You have to be able to catch readers attention in the brief time that your post is at the top of the "new" listings. If you miss that opportunity then you are destined to get overlooked.
Currently the marketing portion of it seems to be to include some sexual innuendo or something to grab attention. Or a really exciting title.
At some point in the future I would hope to see the site divided up by broad categories, each of which would feature a "new" filter so that people looking for content can focus on and search for content relevant to their interests. And at the same time these "new" postings would not scroll out of existence before a larger portion of the interested members get a chance to look at them.