It's sort of silly to suggest that people assess someone based on grades when first meeting them (or ever). No one has ever asked me about my grades in any level of education-they're average to below average compared to my peers (2.5-3.0). Most people assume that I did very well in school because I spend a great deal of time reading about a wide variety of subjects so I tend to know a lot about whatever topic comes up at lunch or whatever.

I've met some people who got good grades but can't do anything useful so they go nowhere. I've met some people who make my grades look excellent and they're much more capable than I am in terms of programming skills (in my estimation at least). In my experience the ability to influence people in an organization and read people's feelings is far more important to success than grades. Even the smartest people I know whose social skills are bad tend to have problems getting where they want to go in life.

I assume that people who write these kinds of articles did well in school (Joel Spolsky's made this point before so I'm mostly thinking of him). I think that people who did poorly in school are less likely to write this sort of article and thus if they did I'd pay closer attention to what they're saying. These sort of statements strike me as self serving and defensive.

If you did well in school you played by the rules and you got your reward already. Your parents were happy with you, your teachers didn't ever give you the lecture that went like this "If you only tried a little bit you'd be getting an A in this class", your friends admired your achievement, etc. I'm not sure I feel any need to give you anything more than you already have received. I don't resent your success at all but it's hard for me to feel sorry for you if people notice the underachievers who made it before they notice you.