I am not sure about the link counting or no theory, I don't see why not. I am sure there are some sort of algorithm to see what kind of link and how many before the algo ignore the whole page/blog.

I am getting into the blogging thing now. It's quite interesting, and as an author, I found myself visiting a lot of sites and blogs, as well as reading a lot of articles, just to keep up-to-date and be in the mix.

I would say it's a good personal experience to have.

In any case, if you are serious about starting a blog, do it yourself and install WordPress or something on your own domain. Don't spend a lot of time building up free blog hosting account then later on regret the decision.