hi,
using permalinks is a common practice with WordPress and it is actually the best possible option for SEO. I would say 99% of wordpress website do not use default permalinks.
GeoDirectory uses a custom permalinks structure with locations, that would be impossible to handle with the default WordPress permalinks structure.
In addition, changing from the default to the postname permalinks structure shouldn’t break anything of your 10k articles. It will just change their URL to a nicer looking one.
Given that it is not a requirement for Google News to have a unique identifier in the URL, while it is for GeoDirectory to have non default permalinks, I’m not sure what we are discussing about here.
Thanks