No it doesn’t and yes they would.
AFAIK, Discourse doesn’t store the last topic visited but does store the last visit timestamp for each topic (topic_users.last_visited_at) so it should be possible to find the latest topic visited and then display it. But this will require a plug-in or an external widget that calls the Discourse API.
The following material is just for completeness on this topic.
As already said, the closest to what you want is to use bookmarks:
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Bookmark a topic. The bookmark will return you to the first post unless you have read the entire topic already in which case you will be at the last post. But the timeline can show a back button to allow you to return to last read post in that topic - see the far right of this screenshot:
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Bookmark a post will, by definition, allow you to return to the specific post. Combinations of topic and post bookmarks are discussed here.
As you pointed out, bookmarks have two failings for your purpose:
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Bookmarks normally require user action to set them unless a plug-in or other software is used to create them.
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Bookmarks always return to the specific topic (i.e. first post) or the specific post that was selected by the user. There is no option to have a bookmark that returns to a topic or post that is determined by software at the time the bookmark is accessed.
The URL you are talking about can always bring up the last post read because the forum software automatically stores that data. This is useful because we don’t always know when we will stop reading in the forum - it can be interrupted by system reboot, system user or application user logout or an unexpected crash.
Discourse doesn’t have an option to return to the last post viewed but I think that it would be a useful feature.
P.S.
However, Discourse does have a feature that shows you which topics you viewed in your last visit even in Bookmarks so that helps to show you which topic you might have last looked at:
Others have looked at extracting the last visit data, e.g.: