As it so happens, I am very eager to see a blog app be developed for my personal use. Dave Bauer and I happened to have been chatting about this just yesterday and we were going to start desiging some of the UI needs next week as this week we're swamped.
The tool that I happen to be very impressed by is MovableType (http://www.movabletype.org), which I mentioned earlier in the thread. In general, it seems that there are very positive reactions to MT by its users. I was attracted to it because the admin UIs for MovableType are very nice. Dave and I were hoping to base our initial spec work off of MovableType.
Also, from what I can glean from the conversation on this thread, much of the functionality is also available that you guys are seeking. If you visit the MT features page (http://www.movabletype.org/features.shtml) and MT Screenshots (http://www.movabletype.org/screenshots/screen-mainmenu.html) you may get a better sense.
talli
