... is that system level (combinatorial) effects would limit Internet routing long before moore's law could do so.
It is an easy derivative/proxy for the system level effect is all. Bandwidth for updates (inter and intra system) are another choking point but folks tend to be even less aware of those than cpu.
is bandwidth the only consideration? number of graph nodes and number of advertised endpoints and churn rate per endpoint don't enter into the limits? at what system size does speed of light begin to enter into the equation? (note, as i told geoff huston: if it seems like john scudder's outbound BGP announcement compression observations are relevant, or that moore's law is relevant, then you're misunderstanding my question or i'm asking it wrong.)