I think you've hit something here. Soon after I started using Twitter a couple years ago, I found that the short discussions I'd have on Twitter would make their way to a full blog post – once or twice, as in this one, using the text of the Tweets to make up the post, but frequently as a springboard to a more fully fleshed out argument. One great benefit to this method is that the Twitter conversation helps you to figure out what will resonate with people before devoting an entire afternoon to writing up something great that no one will ever read. And it gives you just enough healthy contradictory evidence to make your own post that much stronger.

FWIW, related to our conversation below, I started using the Selective Twitter Updates app to send specific Tweets to my Facebook status update by appending a hash tag to the end. It's a nice little way to keep the automation, but maintain a bit of segmentation and control over the broadcast.