See Blog Display Settings, specifically the setting PostListUseBottomDate, if you set that to false then it puts the date at the top below the title. For the detail view there is also BlogViewUseBottomDate.
So the answer is yes, it can be done from the theme.skin file of the skin.
Though again, I'm not sure all of the display settings are available in your older version so if some settings don't work you would need to upgrade.