I don't think a Newbie / Stupid Questions THREAD will work, for various reasons including things getting lost and missed. And also because sometimes questions are not as stupid as they may first appear to the question asker. They can be legitiamte new issues, or spark very usefull and ontopic expansions (which would in turn be hard to refer people to!)

Therefore what I think could work better, although I'm not totally sold yet on either idea, is to have a SUB SECTION, for stupid questions / reference to other threads etc. Threads that are quickly closed or addressed by reference can be moved there, etc.
....although I'm not sure if this would make it any easier or not.
If someone knows it is a silly question, they can say: "boot this to stupid questions afterwards".

This might leave main area for main issues (easy to follow) and the sub area with recurring newbie questions - many threads, but the repetition will help (in a way) to keep all the popular issues on the first page of that section.

Personally I worry if the problem is that perhaps too much of the critical mass of expertise has been driven elsewhere or due to surge in new users, is drowned out by the noise of newbie posts. Forums have a habit of becoming victiums of their own sucess and the resulting popularity (and drop in average expertise) just as much as failure due to lack of users.