Which blogging site should I use?

I switched from LiveJournal to Blogger, because I wanted the following:

• a reliable site - LJ seemed to go down a lot
• a set of features that wouldn't go away - LJ disabled memories
• a site that is likely to stick around - LJ has been bought by Six Apart which also owns Typepad
  

Both LJ and Blogger offer these features that I want

RSS feed

a site where you could browse from blog to blog

cheap or preferrably free

But I also want

• A list of the last 10 comments displayed in my sidebar - The comments hack I have only displays that last comment in the main page
• Trackbacks - They seem pretty cool

I could install blogging software on C's web site, but it's not particularly reliable. We don't perform regular backups. Typepad seems to offer what I want, but the most basic package is $50 a year, which feels like a lot.

Do you know of a blog site that might fit my desires? Which blog software/site do you use? What do you like/dislike about it?