The condenser frontend is really showing its age and unfortunately having the trending page be the front page of Hive is really not going to give a first good impression of what's on offer here. I will always point people to PEAKD, it puts content front and center. Although, it is good to have alternatives I'd vote to have PEAKD the homepage of Hive.
Congrads on moving up the ranks, well deserved.
I like PeakD but when I'm looking for what's receiving high ratings (trending) I'm still met with the same list. A list that needs to be split into two groups. One for internal info and another for everything else.
To be honest I very rarely look at trending pages as they kind of depresses me. I do get your point however that there should be a place for the nuts and bolts posts. For new visitors I am sure they are not too interest about such things.