Since the Internet is used for much more than just http traffic, it _is_
    reasonable to uniquely identify those services with a standard prefix.

Sure.  Just like all those 'telnet.cisco.com' and 'discard.cisco.com'
and 'chargen.cisco.com' and 'nfs.home.com' and so on :-)

I guess we have differing opinions on some network matters...

Do you work for @home or are they just your ISP?

BillW