First up, version 3.11 of MovableType (hereinafter MT) is out. It fixes a bunch of installation bugs and other things found in version 3.1. Unfortunately, as of yesterday, the instructions don't say how to install the upgrade over a 3.1 installation.
Having now used both WordPress (hereinafter WP) and MT, I think I can do a short comparison. WP's install is much more robust and easier to do. This is not surprising given rival MT has a business designed to do the installations. Hence, MT has an economic incentive to make the install as difficult as possible so you will pay them to do it for you. WP has no such incentive so their install runs smoothly.
Once installed, WP appears to be less polished then MT. WP apparently assumes you will do all your writing in their GUI. Hence, as a feature, their interface automatically inserts line breaks. Unfortunately, if you use another editor to prepare your posts, and then copy the results into WP, it will insert line breaks where it chooses. Even if that is in the middle of a tag. Inserting a <br> tag within another tag disables the tag. This is not a Good Thing. MT has an option to disable this function but, as far as I can see, WP does not.
In addition, plugins written for WP are still in the early stages of development (as is WP itself). So, you should not be surprised if changes in WP break certain plugins or if the plugins themselves don't work. For example, a port of MT-Blacklist (an anti-comment spam plugin) for WP doesn't work. Another plugin, one to automatically close comments after a certain number of days, actually closes the database to all changes (making it impossible to login or out of WP nor to add any new comments at all).
I assume these kinds of problems will be corrected and that WP will become more polished and usable. Until then, I'll continue to use MT.
Aloha!
