Re: Admin Blog + Custom Homepage [SOLVED]
From what I can see, https://buddypress.org/blog/ is posted from the main site and not in a subdirectory blog like you think it is. The /blog/ navigation comes from default theme this using the “blog” slug you see in lines 74-76
“Is it possible to do what I have in mind without creating a new sub-domain blog?”
If you want the admin blog link in main site’s home page to open up to http://blog.example.com/2010/04/26/hello-world/ per your posts above, then no. You would have to create sub-domain blog and post there, then call those admin posts in home page of main site via RSS widget, or query to list posts from your admin blog, etc. and those links would open up to your preferred URL structure above.