The solution to dups is obvious too, right? Close em as dups? Yet that is a large focus of the article.

The solution to out-dated answers might be obvious, but apparently obvious isn't stopping it from being a problem... it's a big problem.

If it's obvious, why is it still a problem? If the answer is "because the userbase isn't doing what I want", then _that's_ a problem to which the answer is apparently not obvious. To the extent that SO has been succesful, it is of course that figuring out how to structure the software so as to get the userbase to do useful things _is_ the problem, not an "exersize left to the reader".