The main thing I see derailing this wordpress project, barring some large snafu on the developer's end, is the inability for more users to get signed up any faster than has been happening now for months. That Hardfork 20 needs to get done, needs to be good, and needs to get implemented. We were in the thousands a day when I came in. Now we're in the hundreds at best, with occasional leaps into the thousands. That will frustrate folks coming in from the wordpress side.

Blogging has always been a tough row to hoe, regardless. You do as much connecting with affiliates and ads and coupons and whatever else as you do writing, and then, in my estimation, you end up cluttering up your website with it all and putting the emphasis on them rather than on your post. Which goes to your point. The people reading are there for you and your content. So, if you can, you try to monetize your own stuff, but that still means selling something, which is, while a step in the right direction, still a distraction. Not so much if you're selling what you've written and blogging to gin up interest, but it is if you're selling what you're writing, blogging, and then coming up with T-shirts, hats and other things to sell.