term 'baseline' discussion follow on

Regarding the 'baseline' allocations used in California's tiered pricing, this page on the CPUC site sums it up:
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Electric+Rates/Baseline/baselineintro.htm
They are known well ahead of time (set by CPUC, change approximately every 5 years (and between winter/summer)) and the allocation is  daily .  All the other quantity levels are calculations off baseline.
If you click on the table at the bottom of the page and then the first link  Understanding Baseline Quantities  there's a great interactive map of the SFBay regions where you can mouse over and see the the various daily allocations by region by type and also more info on the tiered rate structure (only 5 tiers).
So it isn't as much of a black box as we were discussing -- the boundaries are known well ahead of time.
I believe pricing is somewhat similar (regulated, doesn't change often, or at least without some pre-notification).  So in many ways this may be one of the simpler examples. :)
On the topic of finding words to use for schema that are not already overloaded, I'm still suggesting we stay away from 'baseline' and 'tier'.
-A