It measures some combination of how general an essay is, how early it was written (I usually add these links when I first write something, so most links are only backward in time), how much I like it, and sheer randomness (at least half the time I don't bother to add crosslinks).
Larger numbers of outgoing links probably don't imply recycling. If anything it's a sign I think an essay is good and will get lots of readers, so it's worth trying to spread that traffic around. (These predictions are often wrong, though. I find it practically impossible to guess which essays will get lots of traffic.)
Is it not worth considering putting "forward" links into
older essays, so that when you write an essay it gets
referenced by other essays, even when they're older?
Perhaps you don't have time, but would you consider
adding links that other people suggest?
It would be interesting to do to this what I do with my
SiteMap, and colour nodes darker if they have more
traffic.
Larger numbers of outgoing links probably don't imply recycling. If anything it's a sign I think an essay is good and will get lots of readers, so it's worth trying to spread that traffic around. (These predictions are often wrong, though. I find it practically impossible to guess which essays will get lots of traffic.)