See for me author is irrelevant because in many cases I don't know their names and in an equal number I don't remember their names even if I've read stuff of theirs several times. I agree that just having the word count is the most important thing though.

My thought about length is that I've sometimes seen rec posts that focused on that such as "long reads" or "quick bites" or that sort of thing. So if there was an easy way to sort them by length then it would be easier to assemble "themed" posts focusing on that.