I think the photo hosting alone is worth it, especially since you can lock pictures to friends-only, filters, or private (if you, for some reason, want to put a picture online without anyone being able to see it :-p), and there are styles and opportunities for excessive organization. ^_~

You used to get faster servers on a paid account; I honestly haven't been on a free account in so long that I don't know if that's true anymore. :-p You can make phone posts and text posts. . .

Here's (http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=131) the list of features, though just looking at it, it doesn't look particularly convincing to me. ^_~