Don't quite understand why anyone serious with or about their blog would use a service with an obscure url. I would think they'd all want a real url and control of their destiny. Good blogging software you own/run doesn't cost much and is pretty easy to install on most LAMP setups. There are even some free ones.
I'm partial to Expression Engine (they have a free version also) but there are others also. Usually have better/more features than the hosted versions as far as I can tell too.