"What'sa matter, Colonel Sanders, chicken?!" Great movie.

I think you have to start with what you know, and a lot of the BoardingArea bloggers know miles and points. They then put their own unique spin and/or give their take on the miles/points news of the day. There are some who will go beyond this and also feature destinations, hotel reviews, etc. Still others will have a specific perspective (Running with Miles, Spaceballs Milers, etc.).

So as consumers we start from something we all have in common (miles and points), then if you want something more you go and find it. BoardingArea has a lot of blogs, sure, but I imagine a lot of people eventually gravitate towards 2-3 that they actively follow (based on the right fit of perspective) and then monitor the front page for anything else that grabs their attention. So it shouldn't be incredibly surprising that a lot of the content is similar, a lot of the bloggers are starting from the same foundation and building on top of that in their own unique way.

I think from time to time bloggers will fall into the rut of letting the news of the day provide them with their content, instead of their content driving the news of the day. They're only human. That said, with the amount of various bloggers they have, BA will inevitably generate more unique (non-news) content than any other blog network out there over almost any period of time, and that's what ultimately sets them apart.

I don't know if I'm completely objective here though. I completely underestimated how much time and effort a travel blog can be, and I'm nothing (in terms of traffic) compared to the following that many of these people have. So if nothing else I respect them for putting themselves out there.