As I understand it they've got some big iron off 435 and 63rd for a main data center. They've got a second, fail over, site in St. Louis that they physically test once a month (as in kill connections here and see if STL picks up) and a whole bunch of smaller setups all over. They've got some machines that have been *on* for about 30 years. I really do hope they've got good security too, but with their history in the industry, I think they do. I'm fairly sure that's why my friends project only made the suggestion of what to change, and would allow the local admin for each machine to have the final decision of what to change.
Jon.
The argument against unifying UIDs accross your enterprise is that it allows for security holes to become larger. Hopefully DST has some continuing intrusion monitoring in place before (or at least contemporaneously with) their unification effort.