Hmm yeah but ... there are a whole load of top Diggers who I remember being mutual friends who no longer are.

I have never been highly active on Digg, but then I haven't exactly been abusing any relationship either and they know I am active on SU...

Hey Neil. I think that you are right in the sense that a lower account will require far less diggs to hit the homepage. On the other hand, we have noticed that it is far easier to get a story buried now, and if you hit the homepage with a weak account, the chances to get buried by top diggers are a lot higher (from what we've seen). Kinda like if you'd have partial immunity if your a top digger! 

On the other hand, if a top digger submits the story, and you can get enough votes for it (will be harder for sure), the chances to get buried, once it hits the homepage, seems to be lower (because a "respected" top digger won't get his story buried by other top diggers, even if the story is not awesome).

That's just my 2 cents - I recommend you vary; submit with weak, average and strong digg users to find what fits the best for you - I suppose the vertical market have a big impact on the bury side as well, as we've had harder situations with different niches.

I wrote a post about shouts yesterday that was submitted to Digg and made it to the front page. I thought it was going to be buried, given that my blog is about Black Hat SEO, but it didn't.

Anyways, the digg thread has close to 100 comments and you can see how Digg users are extremely pissed off at the Shout feature as it is obviously being abused by.... us, I guess.

So be careful with using Shouts. I wouldn't send a shout with a url to digg. I would only use shouts to engage with people. Kind of: "Hi, nice submission you made yesterday, good to be digging with you!"