Yeah, fair enough, the date is a bit easy to miss. Not my favorite aspect of the theme I'm using.

Sure, it's 81 lines shorter, but I don't know what's going on there, either.

Sure, but I'd imagine most developers have the default controller actions memorized by now (I do). So, this class you're inheriting from does exactly what you're used to. Only now, you don't have repeated controller code and functional tests everywhere. Really, this is an application of the DRY principle to app/controllers.