Hello Chuck,
I can't speak for Bruce but I suspect his 'other' category is the 'open' category. The Guidebook doesn't actually treat 'geographic' as a class in the same sense as 'community-based' or 'open' gTLD but Staff has expanded the restrictions on geographic names beyond what the GNSO recommended and there is still discussions between the Board and the GAC, but I think that mainly concerns 2nd-level geographic names.
Yes that is right. From memory the GNSO never really created an "open" category. But when you read the guidebook there are effectively three categories being discussed - ie there are different rules that apply to those three categories. This is apparent because the requirements to complete the application are different (e.g for geo names you need to provide a letter from the relevant public authority etc). I don't believe that adding more categories in this round actually makes anything go faster - each category typically kicks off a year or more of discussion. Regards, Bruce