That won't work if you're using mDNS on the local network, as the dnsmasq resolution will hijack all queries to .local.

Really, there just needs to be a small set of reserved TLDs. This includes one for which queries should

never* be issued off a given host. .local (== 127.0.0.1) would have been ideal, but zeroconf slurped it up first. I'd put my vote in for .dev, but the Wikipedia link indicates that Google's looking to score it. :-P