Layer 2 routing/Conversation topic

With no intention of being sarcastic, layer 2 routing is really switching. While there are technologies that help bridge the gap such as MPLS and vlan trunking over vpns, layer 3 depends on layer 3 addresses (generally routable), route tables, and arp tables (resolves IP to MAC). Layer 2 relies on MAC addresses and the CAM table, which ultimately resolves mac addresses to port or trunk port. Effectively, layer 2 'routes' frames, but to keep terminology lucid, this is called switching. Once a packet (at that point a frame) gets to the destination network, the switches already know what vlan the frame is destined for as this is done at layer 3 via a router or MSFC, and it must simply determine which port the destination machine is one via its CAM table (with the help of a layer 3 arp if necessary). On the routing side, routing is only needed when traffic needs to get from one network to another, as anything intra-vlan/network is switched.

I'm sure some of my colleagues here will weigh in with some different technologies and slightly varying opinions, but the short answer is that layer 2 and layer 3 are different. I think the biggest point of contention will be 'layer 3' switches, which effectively can act as router and switch, but you still very much have layer 2 ports, layer 3 ports, and layer 3 routing protocols, and while they all reside on the same box, it does not mean the technologies are meshing at the process layer.