This just in, via my email: A note from Ev saying Blogger Pro will become free, and will be folded into Blogger as one product. Some questions for the group:
1) Is this the rich company Microsoft-like tactic of offering a free product that will undercut people trying to charge?
2) Is this an expression of the belief, "We're no longer in the product development business, the real money is in selling ads on this thing--and everywhere else in the universe for that matter?"
3) Or is it a corporate branding issue--ie, Google does not charge for premium services. It makes its money from search results and paid search and ad word placements. Therefore a product offered by Google should fit into those models.
4) Or it it they're so loaded they don't give a %$%K ? ( I don't believe that one.)

Ev says: "Google has lots of computers and bandwidth. And Google believes blogs are important and good for the web."
My guess is that the translations from the Googlese is--#2.