Well if it wasn't for someone buying <star>.com back in the day, we probably could have them. Oh and then buying <star>.<star>.com after browsers banned that one, which led to RFC 6125 rule clarifications and restrictions.
BTW, did I blink and miss the "It really is all faster over HTTP/2, even given TLS" bit? My testing for my tiny lightweight sites close to their users (the opposite of what you're dealing with) is that HTTP/2 is slightly slower overall. Even with Cloudflare's advantages such as good DNS. And with the pain of cert management...
http://m.earth.org.uk/note-on-carbon-cost-of-CDN.html
Anyhow, thanks for the warts-n-all.
haha, that page is a priceless timecapsule:
Use the Java applet below to search ExNet's main Web pages.
When the ``Status'' indicator stops flashing and says ``Idle'', type key words in the ``Search for:'' box.
The ``Results:'' box will show you the documents that matched your key words, the best matches coming first in the list. Click on any line in the ``Results:'' box, and that document should appear in a new browser window in a few seconds. When you are finished with that document, you can close it without killing your browser.