If you host mostly static content, it does not make sense to use distributed server farms. I think it makes much more sense to maintain a single server farm and use a caching service such as Akamai or Sandpiper . These services have LOTS of servers around the Internet. Their customers are essentially relying on their distributed load balancing to achieve better performance, redundancy and scalability. This becomes even more attractive when you consider that your hardware needs will be much lower than if you served every single page yourself.
Less hardware means fewer headaches.
I don't know about you, but I could certainly do with fewer hassles. It sounds good in theory. I think so. We use Akamai to serve static content on the Fool site. The only completely static files we have are our graphics.