Agreed on both points. When blogging became the dominant reason for having a website, we were already on the way to the "content" hell. Any semi popular website had pressure to post more frequently, diluting quality. And pretty soon after that, blogs went from 500 words to 140 characters, but 10x the frequency.
Static websites that were updated only once in a while were far better at showing a cross section of someone's life In that respect, StumbleUpon and browser bookmarks were superior to RSS.
StumbleUpon is the reason I regularly use the phrase, “I stumbled upon” to this day.
What a glorious product.
In retrospect, I would say that the "blog rush" was kind of a precursor to the rise of influencers. There was even a crowd of "blogging gurus" that would ask a pretty peny for advice on how to advance your blog.
The blogging pressure got so out of hand, that even some EU bureucrat thought it would be a great idea for each FP6 funded project to have a blog besides its static website. At least with the influencing trend they don't ask researchers to do glamour shots with their food.