English phonetics, while irregular, don't deserve nearly the bad rap they get. In most cases, the possible pronunciations of a given letter-cluster can be dramatically narrowed down by their position in the word and a little knowledge of etymology.
But no such clues help in the resolution of the -ough suffix. So I feel little shame in adding blough to the possibilities already represented by cough, dough, plough, rough, and through. If anything, it's closer to the original Middle English phonology than any of these.
