A bit late with this one, but I wanted to note the launch of the Guardian’s Comment is Free blog.
Aesthetically, the design of the site is great. It’s a bit hard to navigate around, though, and that great big image in the middle of the page — which differentiates the editors’ picks from the rest of the blog — is not very intuitive. I’d have expected to see it either on the left or the right of the page and not the middle.
Overall, Comment is Free is overwhelming. There is, however, a great deal worth reading (as well as some not so worth reading).