• self-hosted
• easily template-able
• easily customizable
• supports email-to-post
• supports XML-RPC
• supports RSS output
• internal search engine
• an writing UI encouraging writing 200+ words at a time
• an reading UI encouraging reading 2+ essays at a time

Update 11 Oct 2010
Add these to the list;

• memorable, human-readable URL constructs
• doesn’t bias how or what I publish