This is more of an emotional argument than a pragmatic one. "Avoidance of central authority" isn't a meaningful engineering principle. If you look under the covers almost anywhere on the Internet, there are central authorities hiding: in the DNS, in routing and IP registries, and so on.<p>But that's not an interesting response to you. A more meaningful response goes:<p><pre><code>   This is the first time you've connected to bankofamerica.com.
   The authenticity of this host can't be established.
   The RSA modulus provided is
      00:ce:fd:f1:ba:7b:84:6f:08:fb:fe:86:bc:57:dc:
      97:51:23:f0:7f:d7:4c:ea:49:5e:54:78:c5:d6:8e:
      68:8c:76:20:24:52:f6:d6:60:0a:c5:79:ec:03:7d:
      1f:4d:d2:e9:ca:ec:f5:72:93:57:87:7d:75:b6:e8:
      9d:b3:33:b7:8d:b7:9b:0f:4b:0e:4f:51:ba:fd:d7:
      88:63:44:53:bd:50:cc:c3:bf:1b:ca:98:d8:d2:35:
      a8:10:62:4a:05:a2:d8:54:1e:e1:40:b2:be:cf:69:
      80:ba:ed:63:ab:d1:74:32:48:5f:19:a1:82:86:d1:
      cd:89:16:be:d6:0a:f2:61:97
   Are you sure you want to give this key access to your
   bank account? (yes/no)
</code></pre>
SSL (anchored keys) works better than SSH (key continuity) for the problems SSL needs to solve, because:<p>* The first connection made in a key-continuity system is essentially unsecured, which creates an unacceptable window for opportunistic attackers --- none of whom care which 5% of connections they snag, and<p>* There are vastly more SSL connections than SSH connections, meaning not only that browsers would have store many many many times as much security state, but that users would be constantly exposed to alerts when sites regenerated keys, and<p>* The anchor keys in your browser, while not particularly well reported, are at least feasible to audit by hand; on the other hand, hundreds or thousands of per-site keys would be impossible to inspect or verify, likely meaning that any program that runs on your machine could replace your bank's key.<p>The scheme you've proposed is not only impracticable, it's demonstrably less secure (anchored keys leave no simple window in which attackers can seize control of a relationship).