It could stay smaller if he shellacked the whole thing in some sort of heat-conductive coating...like fingernail polish (is fingernail polish a heat conductor or an insulator?).
The dadaist influence is oblique at best -- I think I'd prefer something a little more in-your-face without being slapstick -- but the minimalism certainly captures my soapstone heart.
I'm pretty sure very few of them buffer the data. Think about lipsync issues with video -- I realize that's DVD not CD, but still...the only ones that buffer are the portable ones with anti-skip protection. I realize it's trivial to implement, but hardly any manufacturers -- that I know of -- do.
Why (does it get your goat)?
So you're saying that unless the two cables were made exactly the same way, (braided, shielded, etc.) then you're going to use that as your explanation as to why they sound different, rather than the material?