Having a sophisticated filtering option is absolutely necessary so curators can find what they are looking for easily.
I agree on everything you said here, there's lots of white space that can be utilized and post itself condensed so it does not take so much vertical and horizontal space.
I like the dual paned feed idea, that could be a life saver. Although there should be an option for viewing author's whole profile as well, cause I rarely take a look at just a single post without glancing at history.