WordPress is less worse than every other blogging solution of the same feature level.

If you don't need all that stuff, use something lighter-weight. But for the general question "I need a blog", it's the least-worst answer.

The only serious downside is 'sploit-of-the-week and hence need for staying right on top of updates.

Speaking as someone who desperately wishes his company didn't require a custom theme, I wish we could just outsource our blogs to wordpress.com - which is even more the right answer for most people. But, oh well.