I'm pretty sure the robo-moderation process hasn't changed. How Usenet messages are threaded (optional) and sorted is solely a function of your newsreader, AFAIK. I checked how Google Groups is displaying, as well as my own newsreader (Thunderbird), and both show no changes recently--I still have the threads with the newest messages showing at the top, which is my personal preference.
If you view the detailed headers of various messages, there are not any fields that I could find which had anything to do directly with threading or sorting -- just subject and date.
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