Here are some limitations I currently see in WordPress.com that I didn’t expect to see:

• The limited number of themes to choose from.
• The lack of Textile and/or Markdown support
• The dashboard is still too PHP-centric, which “normal” users aren’t going to get.
• Posts should default to Published and the options on Write Post should default to all open or people won’t even notice that they’re there.

None of these are deadly, and WordPress is still a great platform for this, and I think moving it into a shared hosting thing is a good idea. There are still kinks, that’s all.

I’m playing with the new wordpress.com stuff, and well… it’s interesting. I’ve used WordPress before, and this feels almost no different. The admin area is cleaner, but I think that’s mostly styling differences, and a little javascript polish.

I miss having the Textile plugin (because that’s what I think in when writing now), but other than that, it’s still WordPress.

What is funny is that there are still PHP-isms all over the place. If this is really going to be “mainstream” like Blogger or TypePad, those have to go and it has to be less programmer-y. Other than that, well, WordPress is good stuff.