webnewton - 6:09 am on Nov 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

I, for one, have not swallowed the "Hilltop" magic pill yet.

I agree with you point of view to an extent. Hiltop definately is not present there as is being read or defined in the books. There is however some algo in play which certainly ensures(after florida) that no single person rules a category/topic with his group of site. There are many people(me included)who've a large set of commercial sites on same topic optimized on differet keywords which eliminate the possibility of others to have thier site on top.(On some competitive keywords i've 4-6 of my resutls in top 10)
After Florida i'd lost a lots of my site and after a lots of contemplation and strategising i've that golden period back again since the last 5-6 months.
Hiltop certainly has a role to play here for i've applied it in all the forms that i could contemplate. It's helped.