For the less technical it sometimes helps to qualify what something is even if it is embedded in the abbreviation. But considering the audience here, you're right. I will remove the offending word.

You're playing with the capitalization.

Gopher protocol. DNS protocol. IRC protocol. HTTP protocol. HTTPS protocol. All fine.

RAS Syndrome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome

Why is that a costly mistake? REST is great but it's not the only way to do web development. Read up on continuations, for example. In fact, this very website is using continuations (check out how paging works) and it doesn't seem like a costly mistake.