I've never made an app, but I've been thinking about it. But can you not generate buzz on the web and with social media to drive traffic to your app via hard links?
I would have never thought to rely on Apple for exposure. I would come up with a catchy name, build a website for it and have a product launch on several social media sites... Is that not viable?
Maybe I'm off, but it sounds like developers are kind of lazy in terms of promoting their product and are expecting Apple to just put them at the top of the charts?
Maybe Apple needs to add some more charts to the App Store like "Indie" "New Releases This Week".
It's not that easy, unfortunately. I was part of a team working on an app for 18 months and getting traction is damn hard.