The private setting annoys me a bit, because I usually log out while my subscription page is open, open my subscriptions and log in again. This little trick usually allows me to check my subscriptions without marking them as read. If I cannot post instantly, I don't loose the notification.
Is there somewhere a 'mark as unread' option?
We're getting an insane amount of spam right now, so I'm locking things down tightly for a few days in the hope it'll help (I had to reduce over 1000 blog entries one at a time yesterday - all spam, posted in the space of an hour or two).
captcha's don't annoy me in the slightest as long as the bloody things are readable. When they have a wibbly-wobbly graphic with a mix of upper and lower-case letters in some serif font, and you don't know whether the spaces are critical or not, it just becomes an exercise in frustration.
I still think the registration should become more difficult, not each log in.