The blogs are here to stay, sorry to inform you. This is the way EA communicates on their site about their upcoming games. That won't go away.
I think what we see in the future is someone mentioning a blog is up and linking up to that blog. That way, you can judge and process the hype to your own discretion.
Based on Ian's last posting on here, I feel that is the way they are going. I'm sure for him it was counter productive to post here and he probably doesn't have the time anymore because of the new job title.
It's too bad we lost out on that open dialogue, but it is what it is.