Tim,
Having read all the discussion from the reference you gave us, I have to agree that your subject heading "If you can't beat them, join them" sums it up best. Blackboard cannot buy the "company" Moodle. BB has full access to all of Moodle's code, and all of the great ideas from moodle.org. Unfortunately, with all of this information, Blackboard continues to have a wimpy product when it could conceivably have the best. I think Blackboard is simply buying into Moodle's success with the next best move, buying Moodle hosting companies. I really didn't see Blackboard using any of the good stuff from WebCT, for example.
We will have to wait and see.