But that doesn't mean a feed should be treated as any other
HTTP resource.
Yes it should.
Yes. And it should be pointed out that if it's an Atom 1.0 feed, it
probably contains a
<link rel="self" href="URI of the actual feed so you can subscribe to
it" />
So that traditional type-based dispatching will work just fine, no
"feed:" voodoo required. I'm told that there are starting to be RSS
feeds that incorporate this Atom element (perfectly legal & proper).