The Question
Visual matching systems need a way to represent features that should not be matched. In SuperGlue, the dustbin gives the optimal-transport assignment a place to put unmatched keypoints.
The question raised here is whether DINOv2/SALAD-style visual place recognition needs the same mechanism, or whether the pipeline can be simplified in the direction shown by LightGlue.
Why It Matters
Retriever/matcher systems are not only about the embedding backbone. The matching rule decides how ambiguity, missing features, repeated texture, and non-correspondence are represented.
Changing the dustbin is therefore an architectural question: it affects what the model can decline to match, what it is forced to explain, and how much matching machinery remains after the descriptor stage.