When you _search_ for content in reddit using Google, the upvote system is irrelevant. You are actually just trusting the same ranking system Google uses for the rest of the Web. Reddit's community moderation does not play a role at all (unless the moderation effectively deleted the content, which it doesn't).

It's not the same to look at HN's frontpage articles (or similarly the most upvoted comments) versus just randomly doing a text search for some obscure topic on HN and looking at whichever crap comes first. Specially when you use the very same search ranking algorithm you already complained tends to give crap.