I am not an ex-employee of Equinix, so here's my 2 cents:
When we built the IBXs, having spent a couple of years listening to
you folks tell me what you want at the PAIX and elsewhere, I basically
learned it was impossible to satisfy everyone. If you please one network
engineer, you're going to annoy another one, and that's just the way
it works. In the immortal words of Stephen Stuart, "Sorry."
Apparently our secret plan to shut up Nathan did fail miserably. 
We'll have to set the hand geometry readers to electrocute him on his
next appearance at the IBX.
1) Fire codes and other local ordinances interfered with my grand plan to
bury you in concrete and eliminate fire exits. In other words, we have
no choice put to put fire exits in there, otherwise many of you would die
in a fire due to the sheer size of our facilities. Fire doors don't work
very well if you can't open them. In some regions, we're allowed by code
to lock it shut for a delay and theoretically that's enough time to send
a guard to hunt you down and remove you. In others we need to let it open,
but an alarm goes off (sometimes silently, other times very loudly) to
accomplish the same effect. If Nathan propped open a door and was able to
enter/exit without being caught then that was a failure and one I'd like
to address... In any case, yes we do have a camera watching you, and we
do keep records of all that, so if you think it's a big security hole and
plan on balancing that GSR on one toe into the back of your pickup so you
can sell it on the street corner go ahead and try. Don't be surprised if
I don't write you in jail.
2) Customers are given one point of contact they can call for anything. You
know, it's that game... if you do what one person wants it annoys another...
So therefore, just like engineers love to call their favorite go-getter of
the day, it's ok for customers to call account reps, SEs, or even network
engineers and folks like me. We don't care. However, if you want to call
the ERC we figure that's fine as well. We thought everyone would want
to bypass humans all together and use a web site. We were proven wrong
on that front, though some of the more organized customers use the
web interface regardless. So you don't HAVE to call five different people,
but hell, if you want to, have a field day. (What? You mean there is
flexibility? Preposterous!!!)
Finally, remember the point of all this... peering points didn't take into
account the physical issues associated with colo, and we tried to address
them from the network engineer's perspective...paying special attention to
the VERY different colocation needs for different customers. Oh yeah,
and then try and duplicate it exactly in seven buildings. At 3am one
day maybe even Nathan can appreciate the way we designed them... Being
a colo provider is a necessary evil needed to accomplish the much more
important goals of solving certain other exchange point issues.
