Yeah,
Your idea is to go back to a centralised server system again
instead of decentralised servers.
Do you know the Hotline Sharing System?
That is the thing you were talking about:
Everyone can run a hotline server where you can download
files like using ftp. there are just some better features:
You can chat, there is a forum and you can set rights
for users (registered may create directorys, admins may delete files and guests may only upload or download with limited bandwidth).

There are some negative stuffs too:
Hotline is not OpenSource!
You can only use the client and the server provided by Hotline Communications. Unlike Hotline, Gnutella is free and nobody owns it. Just read the protocol and you can code your own client.

Also many people want to be anonymous when they download
(maybe copyrighted) files. In Hotline you are not anonymous at all: Most people only let you share when you register,
every action on the server is logged!

I used to share via Hotline earlier but once I head from Gnutella I migrated to this network.

To get more information about Hotline, check these pages:
www.hotlinesw.com
www.trackerfrog.com
www.tracker-tracker.com

Guo