The hot page shows content in order of the number of votes instead of monetary value. But it does have a problem with spam votes.
As for your other idea I'm pretty sure Google news does this and that would work brilliantly here!! Have you done a post on that idea?
No but I might go ahead and do that. I needed something to post about today.
I went and wrote a Post explaining my thoughts. Feel free to challenge it, destroy it, add to it, or run with it.