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But that's no use if you use the default TTL of 2-3 hours that I always see whenever I configure new dns entries. Sensible TTL should be at least 24-48 hours, maybe even more for your returning users to not be affected by those kind of outages.

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A 24-48 hour TTL means you're hosed for 24-48 hours if your hosting service has an extended outage because you can't point any of those visitors at the IP addreses at another host. With a short TTL on the other hand, the worst-case scenario is that your DNS provider is offline and you have to change nameservers at the registrar. With a hosting outage, you can just point the domains at the new IPs and be back up in minutes to hours.

Agree with your points.

"you have to change nameservers at the registrar"

Would add that that this is also one of the reasons not to use your registrar for DNS, as a generality.

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