But the new policy does allow normal people to do something they couldn't otherwise do: have a working .com/.net Web site and e-mail in a few minutes. That's good for legitimate domain owner happiness.
By far the number one question customers ask my (hosting) company when they sign up is "When will it start working?". It's almost embarrassing to tell these poor people "ahem... it probably won't work for a day or so, and it's a bit random -- your friends might find it works before you do, so please don't complain if that happens", etc.
It's certainly true that a day's wait isn't the end of the world, but these people are anxious, and it is a source of confusion, bother and worry for them.
bingo! and the TTL issue is almost entirely NS RRs, as Sam Stickland <sam_ml@spacething.org> pointed out in the article from the usual suspects at mit/lcs, <http://nms.lcs.mit.edu/papers/dns-imw2001.html>. of course, almost all date in the gtlds are NS RRs, so the worry about TTL crank-down holds, though just for silly gtld servers. then again, they're paid to serve. randy