Hello ItalianDragon and all,
On the reseller/wholesale market, premium letters are premium as compared to other lesser or lower quality letters. As I understand it, your arguments revolve around end-user sales, letter usage in languages other than English, and a desire to make all letters of equal value (or other than what sales data points to).
The problem is, the reseller market at our present time has defined that some letters as being FAR more valuable than others.
To make the point, let's look at the two extremes:
Any LLL.com combo made up of any combo of only these letters:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T
is going to bring strong money on the reseller market. You probably won't even find too many of these even in the upper $1X,XXX range.
This said, an LLL.com combo made up of a combo of only these letters:
Q, X, Y, Z
is usually commonly commanding something around the upper-mid $x,xxx range on the reseller market.
The question that answers the reflections regarding letter quality is "Why is this?"
Notice the big difference in value between these two letter types. You are correct Lorenzo, that as emerging markets come into their own, letter types will change in time. I too can imagine a day when the letter types start to blend somewhat.
This said, the designations of Premium (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T), Lesser High Quality (J, K, U, V, W) and Lower Quality (Q, X, Y, Z) are direct reflections of broad reseller marketplace sales. Real sales data over and over (with a few granted exceptions) points to this current reality.
LLL.com's that are words or special acronyms will be exceptions to this and letter quality will not apply (ref: sex.com, zoo.com).
Finally, in an op-ed moment, this topic seems to me to be drawing way too much attention. Letter quality is an important part of the puzzle, but not the only one. I wonder why some are so preoccupied with making certain letters premium or downgrading others. My info is based on sales data analysis. I wonder if perhaps others might have other motivations and then develop supporting rationale?
I also feel like this is often like talking politics. Few minds are changed and some will go the distance to push their influence.
Well, nuff said and end of op-ed.
Thanks,
zesty