While researching enhancements for the next release of nukeSEO™, I discovered an interesting article by search engine marketer Michael Gray on using keywords in URLs.  After much research, I'm not convinced that URLs play a significant role in search engine placement, but I was surprised by Mr. Gray's arguments against keywords in URL:

• URLs with user-submitted titles with stop words or unusual punctuation can negatively impact placement
• Google News requires a url structure with 3 digits (looks like TegoNuke Shortlinks will work if your story ID is greater than 99), along with 5 authors with profiles and 3 editors with profiles