I've been using HN for more than a year now and rarely seen a post having more than 2k upvotes.
One possibility is since the HN feed is highly dynamic and constantly moving, posts doesn't get a chance to stay on the top page for so long to get more upvotes or reach more audience.
Curious on why this might be.
yes, please a look at this:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Also this list might be useful too:
https://hn.algolia.com/?q=