It was only a year ago. Would it be substantially different if written today?

It's just an HN convention to have the year in the title when the article isn't the current year. Not only does it not imply badness, it's associated with goodness, since most things from previous years have lost their interest.

One of the purposes of adding the date is to make people aware of whether they may have already read it. It's not an indication of whether the content is out-of-date.