Not sure what dmd is implying here. But I will say that the committee was looking at using either X.500 or CSO protocols instead. Thus it would rely on a centralized authority and a publishing model that would not allow for individuals to run their own servers.

Also remember that this was the old internet where we didn't have NAT or really any firewalling. Most of the University of Minnesota's class B was open to the world at the time. In fact I used to send email directly to my workstation instead of the central mail host to avoid delays..