I tend to agree with you there - though LJ seemed to start getting good in around 2003 or 04, for me, anyway. I'm just not sure why other platforms haven't taken off the same way. Though I think that a lot has to do with each site's personality now. Like Facebook has a very different personality from Tumblr, and Google Plus is mostly just chirping crickets. But anymore it's hard to find long posts outside of Wordpress blogs, unless you're here. I haven't even checked on some of the older LJ clones like DeadJournal.