There is still a "hot" tab on the front page of the site: http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/?tab=hothttps://wordpress.stackexchange.com/?tab=hot
Note that front page and Questions page are different. Questions page is more "complete" and tailored to search through all of questions on site. Front page is more "current" and about recent activity.
As far as I remember there is also "smart" version of front page which tailors question to your individual interests on stack. It is deployed on Stack Overflow (but not sure if any other stacks got it as well).