I don't know if
vroom can or will give you the ability to
freeze newest nodes, but I'm working on a newest nodes
client that behaves the way you want by default. It reads
and analyzes a cached file of newest nodes data that
doesn't change until the 'refresh' button is selected.
You'll also be able to 'undo refresh' to restore the
previous list.
I'll be carefully parsing this and other threads for ideas
and suggestions (such as tye's thoughts on flagging
replies to old nodes). Feel free to /msg me with requests.
ps - Here's
an HTML screenshot of it's current state of
development.