Is Blogger Neglected?

I came across a news from last year that explained Blogger's plans for the future:

"Google is also considering the creation of an enterprise Blogger version, as well as letting users limit access to their blogs by creating private groups, said Biz Stone, Blogger senior specialist.

Although Blogger currently allows users to post text and photos to their blogs via any e-mail program, Google is looking into a tighter integration with Gmail, Stone said.

Although users can password protect their Blogger blogs with third-party software or services, Blogger currently doesn't offer native ways for users to limit access to their blogs. However, Google is mulling over the possibility of adding some native privacy features, such as the ability for users to create private groups and that way control who can view their blogs, Stone said."

Blogger's development seems to have slowed down since it was acquired by Google, and many of the features found in other popular blog platforms (like categories, inline comments, plugins) are not available in Blogger. There are also frequent problems with accessing the site. I wonder what was the real reason for acquiring Blogger: the team or the fact that Blogger is a publishing platform well-suited for AdSense?

This is Google's statement from 2003: "Google recently acquired Pyra Labs, developers of Blogger - a self-service weblog publishing tool used by more than one million people. We're thrilled about the many synergies and future opportunities between our two companies. Blogs are a global self-publishing phenomenon that connect Internet users with dynamic, diverse points of view while also enabling comment and participation. In the coming weeks, we will report additional details. Blogger users can expect to see no immediate changes to the service."