People focus a lot on the 'web', and not enough on the 'log'

Problem in a nutshell, excellent.

Bring back .plan files!

Yep. The success metric isn’t unidimensional here. Having external readers is just a cherry on top. I didn’t even think anyone else would find my writings interesting, let alone useful.

Often, the only reason I write is to have a method of sorting out the soup of thoughts in my head into a recognisable shape, with the accountability that being public brings to it (no, you can't have the link to my site!).

Well said. Sometimes I notice that I’m thinking about a thing for days or weeks and the only way to make it stop is to write a post about it.