I'll agree with you that there is some fun in putting the whole thing together. However, "merchandising" is definitely far too strong a word... (1) very few peo

I'll agree with you that there is some fun in putting the whole thing together. However, "merchandising" is definitely far too strong a word... (1) very few people will create better themes all by themselves than what Tumblr/Posterous/Blogger already made, and (2) the css for each of those sites is completely editable, so you can customize to your heart's content. This makes sense with your testing approaches as well... you can implement A/B testing with a blogging service just as you could with a homebrew solution. Regard your "isn't designed for long tutorials with code" post: http://shadyacres.tumblr.com/post/12476205833/learn-git-progressively-day-1 http://shadyacres.tumblr.com/post/12476205833/learn-git-prog... That's my blog, and it's a tutorial. It's not the best, but it's got code, it's got links, it's got pictures, and I could have put youtube there if I wanted to. You can definitely do heavy lifting using these solutions, and you can use all the time you saved to work on making your actual product that much better.