Thats fair, I guess. Perhaps some of those $100 in fees for unused domains could be used to buy more RAM for root server operators.
This has in fact been done. NSI sent me a replacement for F.ROOT-SERVERS.NET: MESSAGE Alpha boot: available memory from _0xe46000 to 0x1fffe000 Digital UNIX V4.0B (Rev. 564); Mon _Dec 23 14:52:07 PST 1996 physical memory = 512.00 megabytes. available memory = 497.74 megabytes. using 1958 buffers containing 15.29 _megabytes of memory AlphaStation 255/300 system DECchip 21071