i will always prefer and recommend Word Press kept on your own server to bolgspot because you are able to track every thing. ou can edit the way you like and most important blogger/blogspot is often blocked by governments!
i am not sure about the blogs hosted at wordpress; i am in favour of hosting it at your own space! EDIT at this time i am not able to access *.blogspot.com here! and its often not accessible;
having your blog hosted at your hosting account gives you more control. you can set up a blogger account and have it hosted at your domain. i go with a hosted wordpress blog though because it gives me a lot of flexibility and i can expand its capabilities easily with numerous plugins available. -- if you're blogging recreationally, it doesnt really matter if you're going for profit oriented blogging, i'd go with hosted wordpress.
I have several blogspot blogs, but I think that they are not user friendly... Wordpress and its system of categories is good for: * SE * Visitors * Technorati
Till now i have used only blogspot to host my blogs. And i havent found any problem with it. I cant say that blogspot is the best, but yes blogspot is not bad.
Because Blogspot allows freedom of the press. They don't put a lot of limitations on your creativity, or speech. The countries that are banning it, their citizens dont have that freedom. For religeous or political reasons. Look at the list !
Blogspot is now accessible in China. Unforunately, *.wordpress.com aren't. WordPress would have to be my vote. I'm much more used to them and I just feel as if I have more control over my content. Blogspot... you never know when they'll shut your blog down and bam, all your blogging for years gone.
If we talk about the new blogger (not beta any longer), it is really very user friendly and fast. A very good layout so you can easily ad widgets and codes...instead of going through heaps of css and html.