I heard on a podcast that most grocery store beans sit in a warehouse way longer than people think, so the bag date barely means anything. Your 25 minute drive was probably worth it, fresh roasted makes a huge difference. My rule now is if I can't find a date on the bag, I just skip it.

Man, that vapor lock thing will make you lose your mind because it acts exactly like a carb problem, so you keep pulling the carb apart and finding nothing wrong. Had almost the same deal with my old Echo trimmer a few summers back, thing would run great for ten minutes then die and refuse to start until it cooled off. I must have rebuilt that carb twice and swapped the plug three times before my neighbor (who runs saws for a living) walked over and asked if I'd checked the tank vent. Sure enough it was plugged solid with crud and the tank was sucking itself into a vacuum. Felt like such a dummy standing there with a rebuilt carb and a two dollar vent being the whole problem. Now I check vents and filters first on everything before I touch a single adjustment screw, saves me hours of guessing.