You may be describing what the board /should/ be, or what it set out to be, but judging by the threads actually being upvoted by users, you are incorrect. We've seen everything from tech pieces to startup culture threads to general interesting news being upvoted to the main page.
One needn't look far to find out exactly what HN set out to be: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html. It's interesting how much of that language was copied into the current guidelines wholesale, and has stayed there.
