"...I'll just presume that everything from NSI's retail ops to the Registry itself ultimately falls under Verisign.com the parent company...and that anything that shows a different domain is just window dressing for the public."
Historically, this wouldn't have been a bad guess. I hope its a bad guess today. Not sure anymore. The registry guys really have their act together and the registrar guys are getting a lot more involved - all good things - but is the glass-chinese wall actually an effective construct?
There's no empirical evidence that there is and there's nothing but anecdotes to support that it isn't. My hope would be that ICANN looks really closely at the model and what commends it before they perpetuate it.
Metrics Dr. Paul, metrics.