So for those wondering what my idea I mentioned going way overboard with was last night/morning, it was/is this: www.opennameserver.com

Still surprised I got that domain.

Basically I wrote some simple scripts to make a centos 6 box into an instant OpenNIC/New Nations/ICANN all-in-one public DNS box.  I don't think the script is ready for prime-time, but anyone interested in the nameserver itself can try out my dev one, listed here: http://www.opennameserver.com/use-opennameserver/dns-server-registry

Any comments or issues when using the dev server would be very helpful to further development.  Just keep in mind it's in development so it might go wonky or have to be restarted at any given time.

The status script on there is primitive but accurate and not a placeholder.  It does a dig lookup using that nameserver for grek.geek and returns OK if online and OFFLINE if not.  Probably could be more thorough than that, but it's a start.