TechCrunch, BoingBoing, and GigaOM are blogs though. That is specifically what WordPress is designed for.
Sure, you can use WordPress as a pretty good CMS, but there are going to be cases that WordPress chooses not to handle. Some of those cases seem to be what this guy needs in his site, so he's not using WordPress. That's it.
It's hard to say that TechCrunch is just a blog now; it's complex site with millions of pages views that probably uses lots of the CMS features of WordPress.
While it's true that TechCrunch-the-brand isn't just a blog now (it's an event! it's awards! it's an investor! it's InternetDrama!), www.techcrunch.com-the-website really is just a blog. A big blog admittedly, but still a blog.
And unless I'm missing something, www.techcrunch.com isn't even a complex site: blog posts in the left-hand column followed by comments, a smattering of basic widgets in the right-hand column, and ... uh ... that's it?
Sure, you can use WordPress as a pretty good CMS, but there are going to be cases that WordPress chooses not to handle. Some of those cases seem to be what this guy needs in his site, so he's not using WordPress. That's it.