Sorry, I don't see a question about "the blog subdomain or folder."
Are you asking whether to do: mysite.com/blog or blog.mysite.com?
It's a toss up. Subdomains USED to do better in G a couple years ago.
Not sure it's still true but I use a subdomain for my blog and it's
#1 in all the search engines - so hey - works for me!
Right now the RSS feed on my MAIN home page is just cut and pasted. I'm manually updating it due to a formatting probalem I can't figure out with my RSS posting script. I use several different things to post RSS feeds. I have the Blog feed here on the forum using feedburner BUT it's just java so not spiderable. I use RSSEqualizer on some pages and then some free program too.
Cant remember the name of it.