The fundamental problem is there are no magic pixie dust in this business. Sure, some people like to put out press releases saying how they've solved all the worlds problems using the Magic Frambulator. But what they've usually done is ignored half the problem.
So, just how would the members of this group characterize this problem. I am among the people who are "putting a lot of thought into this", and would like a fresh re-hash of the issues.
Or...they have designed systems that have the wrong goals...
For example, some people design routers to "attract packets" like magnets. They design protocols for routers to tell other routers what packets to send them. Why on earth do people and companies want packets ? Processing packets costs time and money. Imagine a world where routers tell other routers what NOT to send them.
Curious angle. Have route tables near the core of the network gotten so large that it would be easier to advertise what NOT to send? I am dubious. The fundamental job of an L3 forwarding agent is to apply a forwarding policy to traffic that flows through it. Whether this policy is applied as positive or negative logic makes no difference in terms of forwarding performance. By advertising which packets you DO want, you are implicitly telling a forwarding engine which packets you DON'T want at the same time.
Routers should be designed to "repel packets" and to quickly get rid of the ones they have.
By telling your neighbors that "I only want packets that meet this specific criteria" are you not actively repelling all of this packets that don't meet the criteria?
They should also be designed to send them as quickly as possible to the place they belong and not to some black-hole called a NAP so that people can puff out their chests about their NAP being bigger than the next NAP.
I doubt that anyone would take issue with your requirement that L3 forwarding agents, forward traffic as quickly and accurately as possible. In the same breath, you address the highly complex and very different issue about how to interconnect these L3 devices. L3 Forwarding devices implement policy. The policies, in their most basic form, tell the forwarding agents where, when, and how to handle various classes of traffic. What happens when competitive entities need to interconnect their L3 devices in order to build a larger network? Does the current NAP model work well? Do peering agreements, as we understand them today, work and scale well? Thoughts? dp David R. Pickett Northchurch Communications Incorporated 5 Corporate Drive Andover, MA 01810 978-691-4649