As to the "germinate and develop ideas" point: right on, and I'd add this. Before blogging, profs didn't limit their communications to published scholarship. They chatted about their ideas in office complexes, in faculty lounges, and at conferences. All blogging has done is decrease the transaction costs of doing all those traditional activities with folks outside yor home institution.

Also, I think the line between some blogging and scholarship is, at times, a blurry one. Orin Kerr, for example, wrote a great 4000-word blog post about the constitutionality of the NSA wiretapping program. I assigned it to my 1L constitutional law class. Yes, it's scholarship; it's short, self-published, and not as in-depth as the Orin Kerr piece that may be published in 2007 on the same topic.... But if we accept that "drafts" on SSRN are "scholarship," then I have a hard time saying Kerr's 4000-word constitutional analysis isn't. Granted, most blogging isn't that, but I've seen other such analyses on blogs, especially with regard to hot-off-the-presses controversies, like newly decided court cases.

There seems to be an increasing distaste for the general law review article—particularly by blawgers. It is worth noting, however, that some law reviews have recognized the constraints on "typical" law review articles and have decided to do something about it.

The Buffalo Law Review has started a new essay issue (they've already published two and are planning a third) that is designed to allow Professors to write about thoughts-in-progress (which is what blogs really are) rather than highly-developed, structured arguments (which is what law review articles tend to be). The essay format is both creative and flexible. I believe that it addresses many--but not all--of the concerns that blawgers seem to have regarding law reviews in general.