I will say this much for Blogger beta...
Posts publish MUCH faster. Used to be, I'd hit "publish" and wait, and wait, and wait for the post to publish (you know, that little screen that showed you the continually updating % complete). Now, hit the button, and "Presto! Change-o!" the post is published. So, that's a good thing.
I did find a link in a Haloscan forum that showed how to use the new Blogger widget template and still have your Haloscan comments work. I'll probably give that a try next week. This weekend is going to be another busy - but in a good way - weekend. No blogging for me until Monday.