We know the formula for rewards, or at least it's public and @k00b would presumably explain it if we asked. The bigger problem is that the rewards are very complicated (intentionally so) and stackers likely factor it into their choices in a vague way, rather than precisely. I've actually been meaning to make a ~meta post about the saliency of Stacker News rewards.

Within "inherent desire to post" are a couple of separate things that we can split out and use proxxies for.

I was thinking about the choice of territory to post in and I think there are three driving forces:

I doubt we could quantify this claim, but perhaps we can handwave something about profits being maximized in a relevant territory to the subject matter of the post because of visibility, owner zapping, downzapping, and community engagement.

I really like the idea of random idea formation. I have no idea what distribution assumptions your going to make, but I trust your instincts.