You've heard me bitch and whine about it...you've heard me joke about, you've probably heard me curse about it, but is that the point?
Seriously, though, doesn't anyone know WHY the spell has a lag long enough to let your browse the forum? I mean, sure...people vote more, but is that the point of the game? 
Anyone who has had a good cleric knows what I am talking about...I believe its the longest lag of any spell in the game...
Its not that big of a deal because its such an unused spell...I was more just wondering WHY.
I never played a cleric but if it does what i think it does, i know why.
I think its affect is amazingly obvious.
well if the effects last a long time, they probably dont want a cleric to be blessing all the arms of every goodie in the lands lickity split. It is heavy on lag so it will be used sorta sparingly.
Evil Clerics have the spell too. rolls eyes
Yeah but an evil cleric would probably be less likely to bless a weapon that has a decent probability of being used against them.
A good cleric might hand them out like they're candy. An evil, maybe not so much. . .
Bless arms is permanent and incredibly powerful.
Remind me again why it shouldn't have a huge lag?
Permanent?!?!?!
Warp you crazy! 
edit: I say double lag length!
It also has a benefit based upon the blessors alignment I believe. Not to mention there are indirect things that it benefits as well. Oh, it also makes a nice ranking spell.
I don't guess I've really picked up on bless arms completely because aside from the very miniscule affects and tags it gives to the item, I've hardly seen a difference on my things. Evil clerics' are much more visible, it seems.
You will see different affects depending on the religion of the cleric as well as inherrant bless affects that are common to all items that have that flag. Some are better than others. Enjoy discovering them. And yeah, after failing to bless an item 4 or 5 times, the ~30 seconds of lag gets a bit ugly, hah.
Edit: Yeah, I'm not completely sure how much I am allowed to 'inform' people about skills/spells, so by all means slap me if I get too specific or just shouldn't even throw this kind of info out.
I think you are about good where you are at. 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but bless arms is one of those spells that has a chance of destroying the item on failure, right? If that's right,I would imagine that is the main reason it's used sparingly.
No, it doesn't destroy eq.