Silly of me, but the reason I wasn't maximizing Liferea was because I didn't set the preferences right. I should have specified an update of all feeds during startup so I wouldn't have to do it manually. Alright, minor point of design -- I think auto feed update should be the default -- but still not a big deal, all things considered.

It's helping a lot that I've limited each feed to only five posts. That way, I don't get overwhelmed by the number of unread items. (Memories of Lotus Notes horror from my IBM days!) That's really why I just sort of gave up on Bloglines: it just became unwieldy. But now, with Liferea, I think I have some control back.