That's one approach. My own has been to dispute that the entire cost to date of the TLD policy development process -- including the grief ICANN had with .XXX -- should not be amortised into the cost-recovery calculations of applications going forward, and as such the price for everyone should drop. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive.
Given ICANN's inability to tie its shoes without alienating someone, the price may well be reasonable. If ICANN were serious about not enriching itself from the new TLD process, they'd put the application fees for each round in an escrow account, pay actual expenses out of that account as they occur, publishing statements as they do so, and after the applications in the round have been disposed of one way or another, refund what's left. (Yes, I realize that this will take ten years, at which point some of the applicants will have disappeared.) Fat chance. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly