The claim (or one of the claims) is that some ADs may place Discusses that are intended to raise a discussion with the authors/WG that could equally have been raised with a Comment or through direct email. This, it is claimed, may unnecessarily delay the document from completing the publication process. Now the dangerous bit, Suppose the AD raised her concern by writing a Comment or sending an email and balloting "No Objection." That would mean that the I-D would be approved for publication. At this point either: - the discussion goes on, but the document becomes an RFC anyway or - the responsible AD holds the document pending satisfactory completion of the discussion. I suggest that the former is a bad result. Not that the authors/WG will ignore the discussion, but if they disagree on something the AD considers very important, the authors/WG have no incentive to participate in the discussion. Of course, all participants in this thread so far would never behave like that, but there is a possibility that this will happen for some authors. I also suggest that the latter introduces exactly the same amount of delay as the Discuss. Personally (but this may reflect my Discusses) I find that an active engagement by the authors and the Discussing AD on the issue and the potential resolution, always leads to speedy progression of the document either with the AD feeling stupid, or the document improved. Both are adequate results. Adrian