New Look
WordPress has very nice themes, which is why I came over here a month and a half ago, but I quickly learned that I had less control over layout than I would have liked.
Finally, just today, I learned that some of the precanned themes allow much more flexibility than others, and I moved from my sharp 3-column sliver/blue/steel blue to a duller but more manageable “Regulus” theme.
The folks (folk?) (guy) who designed this layout say they appreciate thanks and links, and they just got both.
Regulus gives better control over pages and sub-pages. It is now possible to add comments to pages (not only posts.) Before it was almost a waste of time to expand the UFT Contract page. Now I will add to it, slowly.
I may also be creating an outdoor staircases of NYC page, and posting my first photos there later this week (thank you Kevin!)
Regulus also allows the user to play with colors, which few of the other wordpress canned themes do, alter layout slightly, and design your own header image and text. You may see other, relatively minor changes in this space over the next few weeks.

I agree with you that we’ve less control of the layout. I can’t include my previous embeded services such as Google adsense on my blog.
Maybe I should start hosting the blog myself though…
They are selling the ability to customize your css. (from the admin tools, click Upgrade. Or under Presentation click Edit CSS.
I might do that, since I have only been blogging a short while. If I keep at it, yes, hosting my own blog would be an option, but I don’t know that I am ready to commit to that yet.