I think Jon to some extent fails to realize that having options (i.e. sorting by date) comes at the price of complexity.

A significant amount of modern software has gone the opposite way seeking to remove options to simplify products for users.

Facebook grew up competing against MySpace, a site which gave it's users more options and configurability than anyone could want. Facebook realized that users don't want to be able to tweak everything, they want things to be standardized and just work.

It's philosophically the Facebook way.