Comment by Hizonner

Eek! You've summoned Tom Ptacek to tell you why it's obviously better (and simpler) to maintain a second, parallel system that trusts dozens of parties to sign for any name they feel like.

Of course we should have done that ages ago, but, you see, 20 years ago or so, Verisign (and maybe others) had a profit stream to protect and people to send to the IETF. And it's just possible there may have been other players with vested interests in things not getting too secure.