Well, if you raise the number of articles that appear on the front page, people are likely to use it differently. If 90% of the posts are displayed there, it basically becomes another version of Newest Nodes with extra detail added.

The way I personally use the front page, is as a convenient way to see handpicked posts from the various sections on one page, which is ideal if I'm in a hurry. If I have more time to look around, I'll either head to a section on a specific topic, or look at Newest Nodes.

Once I've been here a while, I may pick another section to bookmark, but currently the front page is where I stop first. I imagine that is how most of the newer users do things and as mentioned earlier in this thread, more experienced users tend not to use the front page as much.

The reason I suggested that having items drop off the front page quicker was a bad idea (in my view) is that it goes against the principle of placing posts from new users there so they can find it more easily. If their post drops off quickly, they may not realise it was ever there, and as tye mentioned, they may post the same thing again.

I can understand people wanting to treat everyone fairly by not hiding threads in other sections, but when they fall off the bottom of the page they become hidden, which would happen quicker if so many more posts ended up there.

Everyone is going to have their own ideas about this though, and I'm not sure it's that easy to know how others use the front page - even by checking the traffic logs. It might be an idea to run a couple of polls on this, one on what the percentage of items should appear on the front page, and another on which page people visit first.