This is an *incredibly* important feature - without it, it's nearly impossible to use TheOldReader without inadvertently skipping entries. Pending articles are "new" only in the sense that they haven't appeared yet; they can still be old in terms of the absolute date if their RSS feed takes time to "promote" old posts or if TheOldReader doesn't refresh that particular feed frequently. Those "new old" posts then get completely buried and missed.
This is an *incredibly* important feature - without it, it's nearly impossible to use TheOldReader without inadvertently skipping entries. Pending articles are "new" only in the sense that they haven't appeared yet; they can still be old in terms of the absolute date if their RSS feed takes time to "promote" old posts or if TheOldReader doesn't refresh that particular feed frequently. Those "new old" posts then get completely buried and missed.