I won’t comment on the MT « found the beef » pricing policy. Except to say that anybody fitted with an average level of sanity could see it coming. We blog here since Greymatter & evolved through all MT versions up to 2.661. Will it stay like that? Who knows.
We could consider « Moving from movable type to WordPress »:http://blog.carthik.net/vault/2004/05/14/movabletype-to-wordpress/ (« via »:http://www.scriptygoddess.com/archives/005121.php). We looked at WordPress before, w/o being impressed. Have a second try ?
The « MT is no more free » cabal led me to « 75 »:http://75thtrombone.com/blog/.