Just writing to share some information I cannot act on right now:
I browsed the nsd website today.  Besides nsd, the authoritative-only
nameserver, it mentions a DNS library called ldns, and an alternative
to 'host' and 'dig' utilities, called 'drill', that is built on ldns.
nsd and drill might be the compact alternatives to named and host/dig
that some of us desire.

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung@ojctech.com      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933 ext 24