It is not just the blog style. Every Google product has been ruined by the UI changes. Google Groups is practically unusable now as is Gmail. As for search, pg said it best in his essay
"Google used to give me a page of the right answers, fast, with no clutter. Now the results seem inspired by the Scientologist principle that what's true is what's true for you. And the pages don't have the clean, sparse feel they used to. Google search results used to look like the output of a Unix utility. Now if I accidentally put the cursor in the wrong place, anything might happen."
In general, UI "designers" seem to be running amok at Google, with little or no management oversight. Or maybe there are too many managers pushing this stuff, I don't know. What I do know as a user is that Google is at the lowest point in its history from a usability perspective.
Yes, it's amazing that the product of so many brilliant people can be so unpleasant to use. Must be a structural problem; an organization where design is given little authority or cultural value.
