Kurtis,
My apologies on the low SNR. The original question(s) centered around
the customer requirements/applications/experience and I thought the
product guys could speak to it better than I ... and certainly and
without giving away any of our "patent pending processes". 
I think "native" can be translated as to mean "non-ATM". All core links
are PPP/POS.
MPLS does not imply or require DSCP, or vice versa. DSCP/EXP promotion
ensures priority packets to be forwarded ahead of best effort at each
hop thru the network. Could this be done other ways? Sure. The
original question was how was/is this being done for customer traffic -
this is how we do it in the core...along with queueing gymnastics.
As for MPLS features, I think fast re-route qualifies. MPLS also
provides traffic eng capabilities, as well as in-order packet delivery,
which we've found to be useful for customer voice 'n video traffic.
J