I agree with nearly every point you've made here, except that you're not considering cost. Remember that I said: "You might say this is overkill for a new sta

I agree with nearly every point you've made here, except that you're not considering cost. Remember that I said: "You might say this is overkill for a new startup, but when we can get all this for $50/year or less..." DNS is the most straightforward and undifferentiated service you'll need to run your site. There's little distinction between competing providers unless you're looking for massive capacity or exotic services. I can get all of the points I listed from EasyDNS for $20/year. I can't think of another service, with the possible exception of email, where the benefit/cost ratio is so high. And as long as those random dudes are in the full time business of running DNS, I'd much rather have them do it than someone who's not a expert and has a much longer, higher value list of things to concern themselves with.