I very much agree with everything you have said here, but I must stress one thing:
In its primary sense, Hive was created as a blogging platform. It's also true that it has evolved into something more complex, but I still have to stress that (as I did at HiveFest) there is no better and more profitable platform for blogging than Hive.
It doesn't exist in my known universe.
RE: Why is Hive still around?