"Not including dates in the highlighted articles on the homepage (and only highlighting two to begin with?)"
Which is basically intended only to increase page views. If you're searching for something about web design, and Google's results show the slug for an entry as "Sep 21, 2004", you're probably a lot less likely to read that than the other link that is "current". So, better to take out a date altogether. The only person who loses out is the viewer, who might rely on sometimes vastly outdated information (says me, who has spent the last couple of days looking at Crystal Reports forums and having to discard search results from the early 2000s and even 1990s).
Only highlighting the last two posts, without dates, is a disservice to readers - particularly new visitors - who want to get a better idea of what topics the site covers and how often it does so. Tack on the fact that ALA is one of the only sites I visit sporadically because I know it will be relevant and now I'm lost trying to figure out where I'm at and where I should go. A content site should highlight the content, not hide it. Do they publish a certain amount of articles per timeframe, or is it random? If it's random, now the design is playing favors to posts who aren't up as long as the others.
Which is basically intended only to increase page views. If you're searching for something about web design, and Google's results show the slug for an entry as "Sep 21, 2004", you're probably a lot less likely to read that than the other link that is "current". So, better to take out a date altogether. The only person who loses out is the viewer, who might rely on sometimes vastly outdated information (says me, who has spent the last couple of days looking at Crystal Reports forums and having to discard search results from the early 2000s and even 1990s).