Publicola does this.

http://www.publicola.net/

Wordpress has long had widgets that create "most popular/ most viewed" story links in a prominent place along the sidebars.

Um, yeah... because breaking stories like The iPhone 4 happen everyday?

I would think it better to have that splash section available, but hidden until a huge story like the iPhone 4 comes along. (That's what the old MSNBC website used to do anyway- having a special CSS styling for major news stories that might break... and the latest iteration might still do that for all I know.)

Maybe this format really will be better- but until it's executed, I just don't see it working.

@2 Gawker websites already do this- which makes the need for a "splash story" all the more puzzling.

This will surely revolutionize the way we consume information on the internet!!!*

*until the next revolutionary idea takes over in, oh... about 12 minutes.

@4 My thoughts exactly. This isn't a difficult thing to do on a blog at all.

The Language Police ding you 20 points for "magazinier."

I tried out http://beta.lifehacker.com/ after Slate wrote about this a few weeks ago, and I have to say I don't like the format. When I read Gawker sites, I skim the stories and open the ones that look interesting in a background tab, and then when I've reached the place I was at last visit, I close the index page and start reading the posts. This doesn't work in the new format; you can only open one post at a time. Maybe I'm just a weirdo but I don't like that.

@9 I do the exact same thing.