I always had an LJ to keep up on LJs. Having an LJ is useful because a lot of people make locked posts.

As for why I abandoned my blog. It sure seems like more people read LJs, and I got tired of having a domain. I felt like I didn't have anything else to say in terms of sites. Plus I also did get tired of layouts.

There do seem to be stupid fandom wars associated with LJs, but IIRC a lot of blogwars didn't cross over, because they were associated with layouts or fandoms that don't really exist on LJ (like the X fandom)