lorax - 6:03 pm on Oct 24, 2002 (gmt 0)

You need (b) lined up to set this up.

Not entirely true. Registrars will often let you "park" a DN at with them. In this case, there is no hosting per se. DNS is set up so that when a root server queries the record, the registrar's server responds with something like "yup, that's one of mine".

web hosting - some registrars provide very basic web hosting, but I don't know of any that provide web hosting suitable for anything more than a temporary or personal site

Many registrars are now adding rich hosting options.

Anyone allowed to dole out a TLD (of .org, .com, .net flavor) must be registered with ICANN

[icann.org...]

Beneath this list there are smaller businesses which buy into a reseller package and sell DNs. It looks like they're a registrar but they aren't.

If you're just thinking of switching hosting (where you host your website) then you don't necessarily need to switch the registrar. In fact, it's much easier if you don't. All you need to do is get an account set up at the new host's web server, get a copy of your files there, set up your email the way you want it, AND then you can request a modification to your DN record (the part where it says Name Server 1 & Name Server 2).