They do? I've noticed that Google Reader only seems to keep about 30 to 60 days worth of items - at least for me. The only thing that I can think of, in terms

They do? I've noticed that Google Reader only seems to keep about 30 to 60 days worth of items - at least for me. The only thing that I can think of, in terms of historical records, in the UI - is the 'how often is this feed updated?' graph under feed information. I disagree with you, their main advantage is that they're Google. So they won't get shunned/blocked by webmasters. Other people/services can and do get blocked occationally. Other advantages are; GReader is pretty easy to get going with (I already had a Google account), the UI isn't too much in the way and the fact that they're "always on" (but the last one is true for all 'webapps'/'web services') so they won't miss a update from a feed.