I think your experience is atypical. Most people I know who work at startups, myself included, got their job through a personal introduction to one of the founders. We have one employee whom we hired from Monster, but he wasn't specifically looking to work at a startup; he just applied for jobs that sounded interesting regardless of the size of the company. I don't know anyone who has gotten a job at a startup by sending resumes to twenty of them and getting lucky on one.
You have a point. The post is most useful for people who are in a situation similar to the one I was in: coming from the outside, unfamiliar with the culture, and trying to break in on merit alone.
Congrats! Me too (I start at justin.tv on Monday).
The most important piece of job-seeking advice I can think of: You are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. If you don't ask hard questions, and pay attention to the answers, you risk taking a crappy job and regretting it.