I took a look at the sites you listed out, and i still preferred Web Worker Daily, which was quite professionally done, what with the limitations of Wordpress.com.

I admit having control over just the style sheets is powerful, as this particular blog is mostly modded via CSS (i’m still learning PHP, so i don’t like to tinker about with the loops until i’m sure of what i’m doing).

However, this post was written with the average author in mind, who has more experience writing than in coding. If this hypothetical author was serious about putting a book in blog form, i wouldn’t particularly recommend Wordpress.com – it’s somewhat stuck between the glory of the Wordpress.org downloadable platform (ooh, i love that one) and Blogger’s ease of use to beginners. If i was looking for a complete freebie (with my own domain?) i’d go with Blogger. They, at least, would allow me to burn my feed and to pretty much add what i want to the sidebar. But if i was serious about my book i’d probably set up Wordpress on a subdomain (of my main website?) and enjoy the entirety of the Wordpress platform.

But i do agree with you that from a hosting perspective $15 rocks. And perhaps the ‘free’ hosting makes up for the limitations in plugins and so on. A valid point indeed.

http://secondworld.wordpress.com/
http://nolesimporta.com/
http://jamesbetelle.com/

$15/yr for custom CSS is far cheaper than any host I’ve heard of, plus you don’t have to worry about upgrades.