Great points. Maybe video "blogging" isn't the right term. There's definitely a lot more video content being produced these days, but little innovation in the platforms supporting it.
Part of the problem I feel with home-produced video is just the poor quality. A good number of us use macbooks with that awful little camera in the absolute wrong place. It's probably hard to do, but a video camera in the center of the screen would do wonders. And lighting tends to be an issue. I've been thinking of building a multi-pointed light meter (profably in software) and using that to control 2-4 strings of adjustable LEDs that would be to either side, plus maybe the top and bottom of my macbook pro. The idea here is that software could do a good job of adjusting the lighting for better quality.