No. That test is the sort of ridiculous bullshit that crops up in a bad 1013 section of poli sci. Boycott it. If hubski's an echo chamber, it's because users follow people more than tags.
What're your thoughts on the tag changes? I'm guessing you don't favor them, as it seems to promote more following users specifically as opposed to the topic as a whole. Not sure how I feel yet, we'll see how it works in practice.
I don't think it's a particularly good idea but I also don't think it's going to have a jot of impact on the site as a whole. That's a trend at hubski -- tons of little updates to features that don't really matter; very rare massive changes that usually tend to work well. I just wish they'd fix fucking markup instead of dicking around with a tagging system that is by no means in its final fundamental iteration.