Of course, your bias in calling them "renegade registries" doesn't
help. :-)
How about we meet halfway in this thought-experiment? I'll agree that
you make a valid point in that prospective registries should not be
automatically given their TLDs, but should meet objective and fair
criteria set forth by whatever procedures come in to play, but then
you need to realize that there was a basis for expecting that those
policies and procedures would be created long ago, and that
prospective registries are, in fact, working "within the system" in
as much as they're still here and participating. A true "renegade"
registry wouldn't be participating on this list, for example, they would
be (oh, I don't know) perhaps hacking a redirection of the DNS?
So I say to you, enumerate the objective criteria and give the
prospective registries, who have already invested money in
infrastructure and over 3 years in participation in the process
the chance to meet them, fairly. No automatic entry into the
root, to be sure, but on the other hand, no arbitrary grant of the
TLD that a prospective registry has been waiting to run to
another company that shows up at the last minute - especially
if the existing prospective registry meets the criteria that is
established.
I'm not even going to get into "prior use," as it can be soundly
avoided if this is done fairly.
Christopher