One of the fundamental points about the ALAC position, and one can assume the At-Large position, is that they do not mind a delay in the start of the new gTLD program.
Speaking personally, prior to the Cartagena meeting I wrote Heather Dryden and Peter Dengate Thrush on one point in their exchange of notes in September and November -- city names -- and took the opportunity of being able to speak with Heather personally, as well as the GAC delegates with the issue responsibility. That letter is attached should anyone feel compelled to read it. That Friday when the Board declined to vote to approve DAGv5 as-is, I was in fact pleased that the opportunity to develop policy concerning city names had not been overcome by events. To pick an example already used in this thread, I think the choice of the DOITT as the applicant for .nyc is a better choice than the outcome of an auction for .nyc, and while a DOITT application for .nyc could be brought as a Community-Based application, and could be crafted to meet the 14/16 requirement to prevail over all other applications, except those Community-Based applications brought by other other parties, perhaps a New York City based public interest organization not affiliated with the City's executive, in general, the name resources of non-capital municipalities is not something to allocate by private auction, nor is ICANN the proper beneficiary of the "market value" of the name resources of non-capital municipalities. I'm not suggesting what the NCUC's position is on the disposition of the name resources of urban agglomerations, as I don't actually know what position the NCUC currently holds on this, or any policy question. Eric