And on the other end: who/what watches the IANA and ICANN? This is where I do see more single points of failure, and "procedures", "double-checks" and "delays" than I see the risks with the RIRs.

Well, clearly ICANN and the U.S. watch the IANA because the IANA an activity which the DOC subcontracts to ICANN to perform. The IANA is not an organization and it has no independent status. It just happens to be the historical name for some of the functions of ICANN so for convenience and clarity, the name remains assigned to that set of functions. For clarification read this contract that ICANN has signed with the DOC on behalf of the U.S. Government. That brings us back to ICANN. The ICANN of today is not the ICANN that was originally created several years ago. A large part of the changes in the structure and activity of ICANN have to do with who watches ICANN. Read the bylaws and note that there is provision for watchers who watch certain things related to their expertise. Note the regular series of meetings around the world so that external watchers have access to ICANN in order to comment and raise issues. Note the existence of organizations like the IETF and the NRO outside the umbrella of ICANN but watching it and poking it where needed. As long as this unwieldy assemblage of organizations and non-organizations continues to exist in more or less the present form, I don't see any issues with watching ICANN. If any weak points develop, someone/something will evolve to fill them or fix them or whatever. I know that highly educated technical people often cringe to see such an organizational architecture, but there is ample precedent in the world to show that this is a valid way to build an adaptable long-lived organization. For a similar example you might want to do some research into the governance structures of the organization popularly known as Oxford University. The European Union is another similarly complex beast when you look at it in its entirety, i.e. including the national/federal governments, regional governments and municipal governments. --Michael Dillon