Erryl --

Good start. Just a few thoughts and I'll try to do something more substantive later.

If anything you might want to consider shortening your lists. If anything there are too many funds that have virtually no meaningful geographic distinction among each other -- since that is the topic. Mostly there are too many large cap diversified international funds.

That said I would consider adding a few more exotic niche markets that are not represented  such as Middle East (TRAMX of course.)

I think those changes will make your job easier and facilitate the topic of foreign AA.

One clarification on MERKX. As I see that fund it is strictly a weak dollar play and not a bond fund per se. It holds only very short term high quality paper like a MM fund in foreign currency plus as you noted some gold (8% last I looked). It is not a play on the direction of interest rates like a typical bond fund but a good dollar hedge. I park some of my cash in it but I do consider it cash though admittedly given the volatility of the $US fairly volatile cash on a day to day basis. :-) JMHO.