Conference blog with public blogging

I suppose it depends on your audience, older people tend to like larger fonts, younger people with less eye problems don’t mind a smaller font. Using smaller fonts will create eyestrain unless you give it some “cushion” to help “decipher” the letters. You could always duplicate your modified CSS and use Alex’s style switcher that is basically a duplicate of the current design but changes in font sizes to make things easier for the user to pick what works best for them.
What I find more distracting is how the story content extends past the date, meta, and comment blocks. My eye wanders at why they aren’t lining up.