Articles and Discussion

I am wondering if anyone can tell me what the advantages are to having both a discussion area and a blog with comment capability area.

Aren't they basically the same thing?

I was impressed with how squatty integrated phpBB into blocks on his main geeklog site.

Can anyone think of reasons why a site operator couldn't use a product like phpBB instead of the blogging that is included with geeklog?

Certain phpBB articles could till be posted on the GL main page, like squatty did.

The main reason I can think of for combining them is that you have all your articles (postings) and comments (discussions) in the same place, which would make maintainence easier, and searching easier.

Anyone with ideas on either side of this?