The part of the FERC Standard Market Pricing opinion that I realy don't care for has to do with Ancillary services. FERC would really like to see ancillary services become a free market (bid) commodity. Unfortunately, when you need it to prevent a blackout, one can charge just about any price.
VAR support is a real problem and one that has been made much difficult by the "conservation" movement. A lot of the unity power factor lightbulbs have been replaced by power factor corrected florescent lights that need some VARS. Most of the conservation folks see it differently. The real problem with VAR support is that it can result in a dynamic voltage collapse that is so fast many systems can't react. During certain load and weather conditions the entire western half of Washington is placed on load tripping relays that are set to black out a large population area if the frequency even starts to drop just a little bit.
There is some interesting informatio coming out about how loop flow may have also contributed to the east coast blackout. I am waiting for NERC and the congressional reports.