I think this spec implies that I should commit myself into some kind of rehab.

regexp.rb

it "lists them in reverse chronological order" do
  recent_titles = Article.for_dashboard.map(&:title).map{|t| Regexp.quote(t) }
  title_regex = Regexp.new(recent_titles.join(".*?"), Regexp::MULTILINE)
  page.html.should match(title_regex)
end

... Yeah. Not totally happy, but it's the best thing I could think of.

I miss my mocks in request specs.

I think all you should care about is diffing an array (or string via join):

it "lists them in reverse chronological order" do
  recent_titles_in_db = Article.for_dashboard.map(&:title)
  recent_ttiles_on_page = page.all('#articles li').map(&:text)
  recent_titles_in_db.should eq(recent_titles_on_page)
end

Ahhh, that's much nicer. Thanks so much!!!