For Links to fit into the blog system, or blogs to fit into Links, you'll keep the content together in one app and the ability to admin all content including blogs through the Links Admin, and have many, many users. I have read in this forum that GF may be a better choice for this - okay with me if the features fit better. Yes to your questions XML.
the Content Table? What a nice feature to have a Content selection in the admin menu and just add away. It could be used for:
- news stories
- Articles
- Image Gallery
- Projects
benefit: you can add fields like demographic data, geographical data etc. You can then offer a more powerful search than just looking for keyowrds. Like a visitor can search for "all posts by guys" or "all users in Miami, Florida, under 40," or "all projects in 33126 Zip Code." Features like that I think are important especially if you were to syndicate and let others pick and choose content by these fields.