The problem in the software industry isn't a lack of best practices, it's a lack of practitioners fully aware of the best practices. News isn't so much a function of when something happened as when someone heard about it first.
To make myself clear, I personally don't care that much about older articles. Anyway, I think it's good hn practice for older articles to put the year in title ... since many users might expect "news" or are old enough to have been pointed to those articles several times.