Wordpress blogs - login to comment??!!? WTF?

What is going on in the world of Wordpress blogs?

For a long time now, I've found it essentially impossible to comment on many Wordpress blogs because they require me to log in AFTER!!!11one!elebenty!! writing my comment. These are blogs I've previously commented on freely.

So here's how it goes these days. I read an article then set about formatting a lengthy and, of course, thoughtful and deserving response. Then I dutifully fill in the required personal information - including a genuine, for-real email address and a username of my choosing. Then I press "Post Comment"... only to be advised, now, that I have to log in first. Gee, thanks for telling me Wordpress.

EDIT: It appears this screen appears because there is a Wordpress account attached to the email address I used for commenting. For some bizarre reason, Wordpress insists that I log in to that account if I wish to use the associated email address for commenting on other people's blogs.  Since the account was made by one of my kids and just happens to use the family email address, I see no reason why I should log into that account just to comment when the blogs will actually accept comments from non-WP users – especially when I don't have the log-in details for that account.

I have a couple of issues with this...

First, it's a bit late to tell me to log in after I've spent the last ten minutes or more writing my comment (and why did I bother filling in the personal info if I had to be logged in anyway? Why not just tell me, beforehand, that I had to log in and not pretend that, like other comment forms, my personal info was all that's required?)

Second, I don't want to log in. At all. I've got all the accounts and passwords and sign-ups and log ins and user names and whatever that I can be bothered with, for now. I really don't want to sign up to something else, just so I can comment on blogs. And, despite it's obvious popularity and apparent convenience, I especially don't want to sign up to something like Disqus that wants to track and store all my comments for who knows what nefarious and new-world-order conspiratorial purposes. I just know the Illuminati is behind that service.

Has there been a change to the Wordpress system? Is the log-in "feature" a recently-imposed default that bloggers are unaware of (because, I assume, they're usually logged in anyway)? Or have all these bloggers activated it to reduce spam, trolls and other noise (and me)?

EXAMPLES:
Josephine Jones
Losing in the Lucky Country
Reasonable Hank
Why Evolution is True
Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear

Please, if you've got a Wordpress skeptical blog (or any blog) and you want it to have an open comment policy, check your settings and turn off any log-in requirement, if at all possible. I'd have left a comment on your blog advising you of this, if I could.

Don't just do it for me. I see far fewer comments on these "locked" blogs than I used to and, as we know that correlation always equals causation, I thinks it's pretty clear the log-in requirement is a death blow - and, after Facebook and Twitter have already taken their toll, blogs don't need any more threats to their lives.

No. Sod it. Just do it for me.