Forwarders and performance

[Steve Snyder]

I'm considering forwarders as they relate to performance.  Having read 
through Albitz & Liu (3rd Ed.), I am left with this understanding of 
forwarders as their use relates to nameserver performance: 

1. In the short term (soon after [re]starting named) I will get better 
performance in name resolution by having these lines in the options {} 
section of my config file: 

        forward first;
        forwarders { 24.4.162.33; 24.4.162.34; };

The performance win is that my ISP's nameservers (the addresses above) 
may already have cached the information I will need.  If the info is not 
already cached, I will fall back to resolving the name in question via 
the root nameservers.  

Note that my ISP is @Home, which has a large subscriber base.  This make 
it pretty likely that the IP address I want is in their nameserver's 
cache.  On the other hand, I still have to gain this information by a 
call to a server outside my own network.  

2. There is a long term (named has been running for a while) gain to 
*not* having these to options defined as this forces all name resolution 
to be done via the root nameservers.  My local nameserver will gain 
general resolution info in the course of resolving a given specific 
name.  This general info will speed later resolutions by allowing me to 
skip calls to the root nameservers and possible to top-level domain name 
servers as well.  The win here is the reduced need to "leave" my own
network in the course of a name lookup.

Does this about sum it up or have I overlooked something?

Thank you.

*** Steve Snyder ***