I would be interested in seeing, say, a 7609-GSR or better yet 7609-T640 bakeoff. I think that would prove 2 things - 1) you get what you pay for, and 2) purpose-built routers are still better at routing heavy loads with diverse media. Sure, the loaded 640 will be more expensive, but it will most definitely knock the power supplies off the 7609 in general performance. Perhaps the SUP-720 will change that - I look forward to seeing it in our lab, where I may be reconvinced...
If you check out the PDF at this URL: www.eantc.de/press/pressreleases/sep03/EANTC-Summary-Report-Cisco-GigE-Catal yst6500-Supervisor720.pdf (I am sure its available elsewhere) You might be surprised about the SUP720 vs T640 performance for general routing loads. Obviously if you have a lot of WAN interfaces the 7600/6500 just doesn't have all of them, but this performance analysis seemed reasonably complete. I have not seen a similar one for the T640. Deepak Jain AiNET