Exactly How Much Do You Hate the New Comment System?

O.k., so here's the deal with the comments. I've been using a comment system called Haloscan for the last almost four years, the entire length of this blog's history. Haloscan was free, but there were always those little ads at the bottom of the comment thread which were to be the source of the company's revenue stream. Haloscan was acquired by Echo who is now claiming that "Haloscan's software and hardware is beginning to fail. It is simply not feasible for Echo to continue to properly maintain two separate platforms." They automatically switched everyone over to their Echo comment system which comes with a short free trial period and then costs $12/year.

Everyone seems to dislike this new system and it seems silly to pay for something that does not do the job when there is a comment system internal to blogger that is free. Why not just switch?

The answer is that if I switch, I lose every comment in the history of the blog; four years of conversation -- gone. I've been poking around and there seems to be no way to get the comments out of Haloscan and into Blogger. The blog is not about me, but about setting up interesting questions and letting you folks go at it...and it's been an absolute joy for all this time. I hate to lose all those conversations. But I also hate wasting money on something that detracts from the blog and I really hate being coerced into it.

So, what would be your suggestion? Switch? Stay? Anyone know of any way to import the Haloscan comments into Blogger?