Well guys, seems like the news ( http://thegenesisblock.com/significant-merchant-improvements-planned-for-bitcoin-v0-9/) brings excellent tidings for recurring payments!  When i read this today, i realized i should come here and post as in effect this thread can be marked "solved"!  :-)

The core devs are awesome and i cant wait to see this new messaging system start to be put to use...  Even if it relies on central signed certs for vendors to demonstrate some degree of legitimacy, its a good pragmatic, real world engineering decision which after some thought sounds like the right choice to me.  No vaporware- service providers already know how to buy and manage certificates for https, so this eases the learning curve to get solutions implemented.

Huzzah!