That's on purpose—we want good articles to get multiple chances at attention, and we want the 'classics' to pop up periodically (just not too often), so newer cohorts of users get some exposure to them. So you did well :)
The purpose of linking to past threads is not to imply anything bad about the repost (if it were a bad repost, we would handle it differently) - rather, it's to point curious readers to other discussions on the same topic that may interest them.
I love this feature of HN. Between this, the onion salesman, C+- and a few other favorites I’m on a roughly 2 times a year cadence of getting to reread old favorites!
The case of the 500-mile email (2002) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29213064 - Nov 2021 (93 comments)
We can't send email more than 500 miles (2002) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23775404 - July 2020 (135 comments)
500 miles (2002) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18675375 - Dec 2018 (32 comments)
The case of the 500-mile email (2002) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14676835 - July 2017 (56 comments)
The 500-mile email (2002) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338708 - April 2015 (139 comments)
The case of the 500-mile email - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2701063 - June 2011 (18 comments)
The case of the 500-mile email - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1293652 - April 2010 (24 comments)
The case of the 500-mile email - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=385068 - Dec 2008 (28 comments)
The case of the 500-mile email - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123489 - Feb 2008 (7 comments)