[ztravis]

As a fellow physicist, I agree with you on all counts (except I believe the TR blogger is actually a physicist as well, used to write on www.arxivblog.com). The arXiv is far from the best source of actual scientific developments, but it sure is a great source of 'This idea just might change everything we knew about science!!' blog posts. I'm not sure if I can recall any examples of where this kind of theory has been developed into something more legitimate.

Not that there isn't newsworthy stuff posted to the arXiv, and not that it isn't worthwhile, thought-provoking and fun to read these papers and these ideas - you should just have an idea of where it's coming from, and where it's likely headed...