Sidestepping most of the points you raised.... (sorry)

What I take from this is that the traffic on The Monastery Gates is disproportionate to the surfing patterns of higher-level monks. Personally, I'm lucky to visit the front page once a week, but hit Newest Nodes many times a day. I don't think I'm unusual in this regard (after all, your XP is severly hampered if you haven't found Newest Nodes yet).

So, those of us responsible for tending to the front page never actually visit it.... Its no wonder that the content tends to get a bit stale, but it is unfortunate. Especially, since lively discussion can always be found at the side door. Given the phenomenom that you've observed, lots of visitors are being handed stale content, when fresh content is readilly available.

I've been trying to pay more attention to the front page lately, but have still noticed long periods where no new content is added. Perhaps the best approach would solve both issues at once.... Namely, pay more attention to the content on the front page -- push the old stuff out before it gets stale and before it accumulates too many "im-on-the-front-page" votes.

p.s. I was already thinking about this last week when a discussion node of mine sat on the front page for nearly 5 days!!!

-Blake