(1) One would hope at the very least that they will get around to providing blogspot bloggers with themes that actually validate. At present one can try a theme Blogger provides right out of the box on a brand new blogger blog by clicking it from the dashboard. Then without creating a single post one can take the url for that site and run it through wc3 validator online and the result can be over 300 errors in HTML mark-up and more errors in CSS as well.
http://validator.w3.org/
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Given that then expecting them to provide optimized themes to blogspot bloggers may be right over the top.

(2) I observe that in many cases it’s bloggers themselves who are overloading their themes with images lacking alternate text and descriptions, widgets, gadgets, javascript, bad script, video and audio embeds, etc. and all of these slow page loading time.

(3) In addition there are many bloggers who load down their front pages with far too many posts, which also slows page loading time. While we are on that subject there is a solid reason to reduce the number of posts on a front page and it is that some search engine spiders stop indexing when they reach around 100 posts on any page.

I’ve stated my opinion above. To paraphrase “IMO making page loading time a ranking factor is a case of discrimination plain and simple. Obviously this is aimed at favoring the big guys with deep pockets, who blog for bucks and that sucks. … I smell the faster – bigger- better instant gratification agenda based on the avarice and psychosis depicted in film, The Corporation.”

My problem continues to be: what does site loading speed have to do with relevance?

Who is prepared to say that given two sites (of unknown quality), the faster one should be ranked higher?

What if there are network problems when Googlebot visits my site? Do I drop in the rankings?