I don't think they should be closed. Re-opening the topic for discussion is okay, but I might put the older link references in the new question.
I would also solve search ranking with question upvotes. If the site is growing, it should be possible for there to be more voters to just fix search result ranking.
Something to remember is our user volume is changing, AU is on the installation media and main website now, and I think AU is trying to target newer users as opposed to long maintenance users.