The problem is that using most_recent_published_pages does not easily allow you to produce a specific number events that are 1) in the future and 2) sorted by the event date rather than by the published date.
I know that 1) could still be done using conditional statements, but the next three upcoming events might only come up in the top 50 most recent posts. It would be incredibly inefficient to cycle through every post just to check whether it is an event and whether it is in the future, and then to sort that list by event date.

This would be really helpful for basic pages as well.
For example, if I have a series of pages with the tag “issues” then I would like to be able to include 3 random issues on my front page instead of the 3 most recent issues.

OK. That should have read:
try adding {% if child.type_name == “Redirect” }target="_blank"{ endif %} inside your <a href> tags</a>