Well now..
We have duplicate posts posted 12 HOURS apart. Contrary to your assertion that this never happened in your 19 years on FR, it DOES happen with a frequency that obviously would shock you.
Maybe the time frame you are referring to is that year gap between when you signed up and when I signed up, but in the eighteen years I’ve been here there have always been duplicate posts. Now what does happen is that a Mod will lock one or the other of the duplicate pair if they are posted too close together (which does happen especially during breaking news cycles), but even in that instance the locked duplicate is not removed.
If this truly knots your thong you could ping Admin Mod or even JimRob and take it up with them. JimRob’s been around longer than you. Or I.
(Yes I know that ‘mention them, ping them’ is a ‘rule’ here but I don’t think it’s necessary to ping either JimRob or AdminMod to this thread. If your grits are sufficiently grated by this, feel free to do so yourself.)
Read my post again. I never made that assertion.