I missed Adii's comment earlier:

Our marketing would suck balls if our products & after-sales service weren’t backing up that hype. So why not promote oneself!?

Yes, I agree that if you've got it you should flaunt it and, more importantly, when you've got other people working for or with you, you actually have a duty to flaunt it - within reason.

In Adii's case, what he did by branding himself as the WordPress Rockstar was very astute. No doubt, other companies in the WordPress eco-system could learn a lot from WooThemes but I believe there are some things that push hype and promotion too far and, as such, are counter-productive.

For instance, why game an online poll so openly when you were already winning? Wasn't it enough to have 17 votes when your nearest competitor had only 10? That was impressive. Suddenly pushing it to almost 100 is just ridiculous, buying you short-term hype at the cost of long-term credibility.