This explains why some of the comments have timestamps that appear older than the post itself. I got tired of trying to make them line up, sorry!)
IMHO, it's less disorienting to have the post dated after the comments than it is to see a comment you thought you wrote a couple days ago but is dated today. So you're welcome to stop trying to line up timestamps.
Status quo sucks also, it just sucks less. Haven't yet figured out an actually good solution. Sorry!
The most I imagine most folks saying is "Didn't I see this post on the front page days ago?". For many other discussion fora, it's not uncommon for posts to be at the top of the pile for many days... so a days-old post date should be nothing unusual.