What is the down side of name based hosting. I understand that the early httpd 1.0 protocol can't resolve a name based domain. Is that true? Is there a workaround? Can it be done on a raq3?

That's about the only real downside of it as far as I know. I don't know if there is a work around for it however, as it is a client side issue.

Yep, it's a client side issue. And there is no work around.

On the bright side: httpd 1.1 has been here for quite a long time, so I doubt anybody would still be using httpd 1.0.