I think there's a lot more "editorializing" going on by inserting an implicit excuse into the title, that wasn't asked for and wasn't needed.
The point of a linkbait title is to elicit an emotional response that is disproportionately strong compared to that of the actual content. As such, they are worded strongly.
I agree that "relatively new" was a bad emendation. I probably just would have removed "absolutely" from the original title and left it at that.
Removing emotional context doesn't make a story more "objective". If someone wrote a story like "russia invades china", and the story got edited to "russia parks some tanks in the capital of china", clearly even though both stories are "accurate", the second one has actually lost information.
Emotion is great. I want to understand other people's emotions, which means titles should express them if they are present. It's for precisely that reason that I appreciate tamping down "over the top" linkbait, if that's what this is.
Understanding others' emotions gets hard if everything is a life-threatening emergency†. It's like watching CNN during their worst years: every possible event got a "BREAKING NEWS" banner. It made it hard to stratify emergencies. If every title devolves into "THE INTERNET IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE because git just went to v2.8" HN would become useless to read.
† I'm not saying that's what this article is doing, just making an example.
Linkbait: "You won't believe the disgusting thing this A-list star did in public!"
Non-linkbait version: "Tom Cruise accidentally stepped in dog poo."
The first is linkbait because it teases you to learn who the star is and what was the disgusting act (which was actually quite boring).
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Linkbait: "This company sucks at app stores!"
Non-linkbait: "Amazon sucks at app stores!"
The first is linkbait because it forces you to click to learn which company it's talking about. It would most likely make the reader think it's about Apple, or maybe Google Play Store, both of which are probably more interesting than Amazon's store. The second title is NOT linkbait because even though it's inflammatory, it conveys enough information to let the reader decide whether it's worth a click. The reader immediately knows:
* It's about Amazon app store.
* It's going to be very negative.
If the HN reader is interested in how Amazon's app store is doing and how users are reacting, then it will stand out as a link worth clicking. If the HN reader doesn't care for an opinion about amazon's store, or doesn't want to read a strongly-worded one, they'll pass. There was no baiting at all.
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I argue that the editorializing of the article created MORE of a problem, because it wiped away an important piece of information for HN readers: that this is a strongly-worded negative review. The edited title ("Amazon is relatively new..") conveys no information about the article. Frankly, it now sounds like a very dumb article.