While in general I agree with what Scott Michel there is one point of controversy no-so-hidden in his message:
Scott Michel wrote:
The article also mentioned something along the lines of "Redesign The Seven Layer Model!" Frankly, I've always preferred the four layer IETF model because it didn't have the extra useless layers; but hindsight is 20/20, after all. I could look at the ceiling and foresee the session and presentation layers suffering the death they truly deserve, but the remaining layers staying intact. Layers may need subdividing or even outright addition to the current model so that overlays and the recovery semantics they provide are more explicit.
I agree. The subdividing has begun.
But the subdivisions aren't explicit and don't have a functional definition. The sublayers needs an explicit enumeration of their relationship with the higher and lower levels, much like the "Transport" layer encompasses and specifies the relationship of transport protocols over the Network layer.
-scooter