Your own views of your unpublished hubs are counted :).
It's funny because I wondered the same thing. Sometimes it would seem like they get views even though you haven't looked at them recently yourself. Maybe there's a secret Hubpages staff member reading them?
Food for thought. As to rating, I have read about that as well, but haven't done enough research to confirm. One of my later Hubs did go from about 51 to 55~ rating in about a day of being a draft, so I suppose Hubs with relatively good titles that Hubpages likes can go up during the unpublished period.
I had literally just finished writing the hub, saved it and didn't view it afterwards. But my stats for this unpublished hub says it has 7 views. Weird.
I wrote a hub last night that I left unpublished and reviewed it today and found 29 views! ...Yes there must be others in the equation...
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.