Amen. I've used blogger since 2000, if I remember correctly. The service is clunky. It does not have Google polish. I had to hack the template code just to not show every single tag I've ever used and only show over a threshold.

If I get the time to figure out how to move to some other free service without losing my readership and without leaving my historical posts behind, I can't think of anything that would hold me back.

You can export old posts and comments to other services. I exported from Blogger to Wordpress when I switched. It took about 15 minutes.

If anything Blogger's problems remind me of Google Pages' problems: lots of potential but feels like it's getting the short shrift. Not coincidentally, Google had decided to abandon work on Google Pages, in favor of Google Sites!

I really used to like Google Pages, and I hope they don't abandon Blogger as well.

Blogger is the new Hotmail.

Maybe they are moving to Google App Engine. Jaiku went dormant after they got bought out too. They recently finished moving to Google App Engine.

It is so slow for me it is not usable.