Following Internet Standards and to improve performance for all Internet users, what if Verisign decided to start including other A records directly in the .COM/.NET zones?

For example, the A records for the servers for the .COM/.NET zones?

funnily enough, that would work fine, since it would be in-zone glue, and would arrive in referrals, rather than arriving in answers. the zone would still be "delegation-only" according to the functionality we're releasing.

Or "interesting" sites that Verisign has a relationship with?

that would not work very well for a recursive server who had declared com or net to be delegation-only.

I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow, Verisign is the playing the victim and calling ISC the out-of-control hooligans.

that's doubtful. i've seen people here today advocate "wet teams", null routing, patches that hard coded A RR values, cutting off uncooperative root name server operators from internet connectivity, and even writing letters to congress. isc's actions are at best a minor sideshow here. the question you should be asking yourselves is, what will aol and uSoft do? will microsoft add "delegation-only" features to its recursive dns implemenation? will aol or msn enable this in the recursive servers that face their customers? i guess what i'm trying to say is, the folks who are complaining about this wildcard on nanog, are not the ones verisign was probably hoping would buy stuff. "these aren't the eyeballs you're looking for." the real action is occuring somewhere else entirely.