Andrew,
Thanks for the update.
I have used your hi-fi, home cinema equipment, etc reviews on a number of occasions to help me narrow down the field when looking for equipment to audition and have found the information to be very helpfull. On the one occasion where the item had not been reviewed at that time and I couldn't get a response on the forum from any staff (Panasonic PTAE-3000), I simply went an auditioned it, which is what you would normally recommend anyway. So even although I didn't get a response your general advice on buying held good anyway.
Suffice to say I think the review staff do a good job of highlighting equipment pros and cons and they have steered me in the right direction many times. This post is not meant to be critical of the review staff.
I would suggest that failure to provide any dates on reviews is potentially more confusing and is also unfairly damaging to the credibility of the reviewers. Unfortunately, it can look like the reviewers are contradicting themselves, as opposed to objectively and professionally amending their views as a result of other factors that have changed in the intervening period, such as new competitors, updated models, etc.
No wonder you're frustrated about this, your computer boffins are letting the side down and unfortunately you and others have to deal with the questions.
If you do introduce review dates on future reviews, perhaps some confusion could be alleviated by an explanation in the reviews section such as,
" Any undated reviews were carried out prior to ??/ ??/ 2009,
when we introduced review date information in response to customer requests.
We are unable to add dates to reviews prior to ??/??/ 2009."
Obviously you'd need to put dates instead of question marks, or the forum might go into meltdown.