I prefer it to the old format; once a month is too clumpy for an open thread. It was fine when this was a two-man blog, but not for a discussion forum.
I think it's much better than monthly open threads - back then, I would sometimes think "Hmm, I'd like to ask this in an open thread, but the last one is too old, nobody's looking at it any more".
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.