I guess the way people respond to this sort of thing depends on their motivations. Since I'm in the business of providing a service, I want to provide the best service possible to my customers. So, let's look at my customer who wants to send a packet to your network. Right now, it leaves my network, travels over one of the super-mega-conglomo backbone providers which I'm connected to, and then gets to your network. Now, if in the interest of bettering that, I throw a couple of T3s in to the NAPs I can get to, and directly peer with your network in those places, we all of a sudden have greatly increased performance in both directions. Thus, I have happier customers. Now since on my network, inbound and outbound traffic are almost the same, your customers should also enjoy the same increased performance as mine.
only one problem. i am paying more than you. clearly this does not disturb you. so, tell you what, you can meet folk at both coasts or pay your upstream to get to them, and then we're all equal. tanstaafl. randy