Using dates is a good alternative, but they're not a universal solution. If Microsoft open-sources Windows XP you can be sure that dozens of articles titled "Windows XP open-sourced!" will end up on HN that day, and a site that rejects articles because they have the same title as another has a bad user interface. That said, if there's a small enough amount of content, it might be good enough.
I'm not saying sequential ID URLs are bad, they're still possible in my suggestion, I was just explaining how navigating by incrementing a number isn't plausible for sites with large amounts of user-generated content. It usually doesn't scale.
Anyway, I'm not overestimating the advantage of readable URLs. You haven't given any reason why readability isn't an advantage in URLs, and I've given several explicit reasons why they are (SEO, hovering over links, etc).
I'm not saying sequential ID URLs are bad, they're still possible in my suggestion, I was just explaining how navigating by incrementing a number isn't plausible for sites with large amounts of user-generated content. It usually doesn't scale.
Anyway, I'm not overestimating the advantage of readable URLs. You haven't given any reason why readability isn't an advantage in URLs, and I've given several explicit reasons why they are (SEO, hovering over links, etc).