Firstly - many thanks to those who have replied, I really do appreciate it!
I do agree that .uk.com can affect image, however may not be the full reason as to the 'problems' presented.
Mixture:
When you mention effectively paying for the 'rights' between different levels of domain, what can the implications of this be?
If you have the rights to either a top-level (from the ICANN registry) or a sub-level...what are the differences? Is it something like if you buy a sub-level and there's an issue...can a site simply be wiped from existance rather than buying a .com/ .uk site where it cannot?
You can probably tell I have less than no idea about this, but I'm very interested to find out the basics.
Thanks again, much appreciated,
AF