>More to the point, the US system is so different from the patrician/pleb system of Rome that calling our system Republican while calling (our system minus geographic distribution) not Republican is a pretty freaking arbitrary line in the sand.

That wasn't the line in the sand I was drawing. I was saying that a system of direct democracy doesn't support the Kantian Republic we set up, but a system where there is uneven distribution of power based on region does.