Yes but... I seem to recall a few things about the network you are referring to (the "You are confused" is kindof a tip-off :P), and one of those things was the complete and total meltdown with every fiber cut.
That was a totally braindead design - claiming that no backup path is better than an ATM backup path is just silly.
Sometimes you can win the battle with quantity of service, and sometimes you just don't have a choice in the matter... Why throw away the ability to keep your network alive in the event of fiber cuts, DoS, or just the realities of business, because of engineering religion...
Agreed. However, claims "we have a special technology that magically avoids problems in the networks that we do not control" is the egineering religion. Alex