I really like (although I know some people find the adjustment difficult) the distinction between people you read, and people you want to have access, because that is how I have always thought of friending on lju anyway, and the unfortunate conjunction was just something I had to hack around.
BUT: some of my filters on lj were reading filters so that I could have separate pages, not because I distinguish between the people who I friend, and the people I actually read, just because sometimes I wanted to catch up on my friends, and sometimes I wanted to catch up on communities, and sometimes I wanted to catch up on syndicated feeds. Like, for example, you can go to
http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/friends/communities and see just the communities I'm subscribed to. (I believe.)
Is that no longer possible on DW?