Not necessarily, because very few people brick their tablets, or would without any particular post. But many people gained a lot of utility (though less per capita) by being able to turn the backlight down.

There is the possibility that lives were saved, of course. I don't have a GPS, so I don't use Maemo Mapper much in the car anyhow. But I have occasionally, and at night, the display is blinding on "level 1" from the Nokia applet. I consider it dangerously bright, as it impairs my ability to see anything coming from the side of the road (until it's in my headlights' main beam, and too late to do anything). But that's a stretch; most people simply didn't use it while driving at night, I'd guess.

While I think the backlight applet (thanks to a program announcement post reflects on the program, not the post) could be the most useful, I agree that these statistics aren't necessarily helpful. It's too easy to click thanks; there's no reason to select only the top few useful posts. If thanks were limited (receive an allotment of 1 per day), or if you had to go to some trouble to thank someone (even a captcha), then these statistics would be more reliable by far.