[trog]

I have never thought of WPE as a competitor to WordPress.com but perhaps weirdly I think of WordPress.com as a competitor to WordPress.org.

For example, if I have a WordPress site I've built from scratch out of WordPress.org, I am just going to assume trying to put it on WordPress.com will be annoying (and possibly even impossible?), because of issues with themes or plugins or whatever due to the fact that WordPress.com is a separate, hosted SaaS-style CMS, and not a hosting environment for WordPress sites.

WPE, by contrast, is Just Another Webhost to me, with some special bells and whistles for WordPress.

[fhd2]

It's quite possible to host a "normal" WP installation with custom themes and plugins on WordPress.com (on the more expensive plan), I've done it a few times. But as much as I want to like it, I can't wholeheartedly recommend it. Some stuff that should be easy is just ridiculously difficult, like pulling logs programmatically. I think the main audience it caters to is people hosting a basic site with off the shelf themes.