Larry,
I think one issue in the past was who is going to run the browser
service, which is more an issue of nmbd than smbd. I understand there
is an election mechanism, and a hierarchy where NT WS gets elected
over Windows, and NTS over NT WS. AFAIK, Samba announces itself as NT
WS or better.
I don't know whether this has any performance implications, or whether
this is related to the signature you saw.
Regards,
Martin