Personally, I'm for the mix of self-contained topical posts and conversational posts. Why not keep everything out in front? Not that QuickTopic isn't nice, but it's another layer to drill down through to get the tasty blog goodness. Or something.

On the Perl front, if you're the type who uses a lot of Perl for various things in OSX, you may find PerlService of use. Also by the same author: SSHAgentServices and SSHAskPassword. Yay Services! (Now with correct links! Thanks Paul!)