[icebraining]

I don't want to derail the topic, but has anyone given a thought as to whether aggregation (and distribution and reader functionality) could work in a decentralized, p2p manner? Without relying on a central authority of any kind?

I think that's Usenet (cue George Santayana's quote).

It doesn't have a centralized authority, it's delivered in machine readable formats (so you can easily process it), it has plenty of readers, etc.