1) just because the recommendations aren't suited to you doesn't mean they're bad in general. Hacker news is very special, sophisticated demographic. The recs are currently optimized for a more main stream audience. We get lots of feedback from users attesting to this. Certainly there is lots of room for improvement tho and that's why I want to hire so badly. We care a great deal about the product.
2) There's no bait and switch or anything underhanded going on with the gift cards. We get a certain amount when a user downloads an app, and we credit the user a certain percentage to work their way toward a reward. We need to expire point of inactive users to prevent an accounting nightmare. Many users are getting the cards every day.
Hope that clears things up. I certainly understand the skepticism, and again I welcome tough criticism.