ergophobe - 6:28 pm on Dec 27, 2012 (gmt 0)

How limited is the "simplest" option?

Aside from having your own URL, they're free to try, so the best way to see is to try one.

Theming Blogger is an art unto itself. Wordpress.com has a variety of themes, but you're limited to what you can do custom. You're also limited in terms of plugins.

And then there are places like Drupal Gardens which give a bit more flexibility and your site is fully exportable so you could move to your own server pretty easily.

The main thing is that someone else watches the site and deals with the hackers and updates and they typically have experienced engineers, often if not the same ones who wrote the base system in the first place, engineers with access to the top core developers. They do a full code review on any plugins/themes/modules before they turn them loose in the wild. The regular webmaster, no matter how experienced can't compare with that.