A node already has a "createtime" and "lastupdate" and even a "lastedit" field. I cannot see what adding yet another field and creating an additional table would do.

You know how we have messageonreply, what no a messageonupdate? Everytime a node is updated, it would send a message to a special group, something like SystemNodeUpdated and then people could go to the messageinbox, with 'recipient' being that of SystemNodeUpdated, and view the messages, which would look something like:
<SystemNodeUpdated> says "PodMaster updated Re: Re**2: Newest node page - order of nodes on Mon Feb 10 02:22:22 2003 GMT"

update: I guess adding a table to keep track of this could potentially lead to some kind of database indexing optimization ... i'm not convinced we need it.

MJD says you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo! ** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.