I apologize for opening up a whole new question for this topic since it's been discussed a few times now, however I don't have enough rep yet to comment on the existing questions.
Regarding the answer to this question:
Channel index page linked in a structure
So what this answer is saying is that instead of having a whole separate channel for say, a blog, I should have it set up so that "Blog" is an entry type in my larger structure that also contains the various static pages for my site? if I'm understanding that correctly, doesn't the user lose out on some of the basic feature that a separate channel offers, such as not having to choose where in the structure hierarchy a new blog post should be?