I thought that the title of the post had to start with 'Ask HN:' for it to end up in the Ask section. One of the posts you linked is actually my project and I definitely had no intention of being sneaky. Nor was I trying to bypass any rules. I initially posted it with a "Show HN" title, but it was immediately marked as spam (for reasons that I still don't understand because I've never posted to HN before), so I deleted it and asked a friend to submit the project for me. Neither of us knew that leaving out the url automatically classifies a post as Ask HN. I've just looked at the submit form again, and I see where it's written, but it's not immediately obvious that that's what will happen.
It's impossible to know the intentions behind every single post, but together they're a trend and they do tell a story. What is unclear to me is why would anyone post their Show HN in that gray, de-emphasized text field where URLs are not even converted into links? Visitors have to actually copy and paste the URLs into their address bar. That makes absolutely no sense unless there is another advantage to be gained from submitting text posts (instead of URL posts).
