Thanks for your thoughts about words...and their misuse! You are so right, people are too sensitive about their speach (or their blog).
If I might say, though, the definitions of "balmy" in the Oxford English Dictionary are quite interesting, and not as I had ever understood previously. I don't know where you live, or where those that originally used balmy in the sense of describing the weather, but where I live I would not apply Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "balmy" to an August day. I live in Northeast Ohio, and here August is hot and humid - the seemingly incorrect, yet popular understanding of balmy. Perhaps that is where the misunderstanding has come, and you might want to think about how location and culture tends to change the meanings of words. In that case, there may be times in which you are criticizing others' word-usage when in fact they are writing from their own cultural understanding. For instance - British English has some very different meanings for words than American English. Neither one is wrong, and neither one is the only right one.
I just offer this as food for thought. Words are an incredibly hard herd of animals to tame, much like our tongue that uses them as the Bible says.
Blessings to you, and thanks again for your post.

Brian,
Thanks for the correction. I've now edited the typo.
Christine,
Thanks for your comment. Words are in flux, no question. But in this case, the popular conception of the term is nearly completely opposite of its meaning. If people use "purity" and mean "corruption" or if they use "tired" and mean "energized" then the challenge of meaning is considerable.
It seems to me that there is a continuum with respect to the evolution of meaning of words. I recognize that there is some elasticity in meaning but I also recognize that a word cannot have infinite meanings. If each word can mean every other word, then one cannot communicate. So we have standard meanings, we have dictionaries as reference works that publish the standards, and parents, teachers and others point people to the actual meaning of the words.
I find myself wondering if the evolutions in language are sometimes misuses that have become widespread misuses because insufficient correction was brought to bear.
Here is what the American Merriam-Webster dictionary says about balmy:
Main Entry: balmy
Pronunciation: 'bä-mE, 'bäl-mE, New England also 'b[a']-mE
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): balm·i·er; -est
1 a : having the qualities of balm : SOOTHING b : MILD
2 : CRAZY, FOOLISH
- balm·i·ly /-m&-lE/ adverb
- balm·i·ness /-mE-n&s/ noun

Nice post. Come on over to my blog sometime and you'll see I have a lot to say about words and the apparent disregard for what they mean these days.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person who still knows what the word "hopefully" means. Talk about fingernails on a chalkboard: that one does it for me every time.