For those who read Mark's note, some minor corrections:
While the Arpanet and the Internet certainly began as research projects
funded by the military, there was essentially nothing in the work that
was tied to that environment. The only design criterion that was
forcefully asserted and had significant design effect was that the
system survive in a hostile environment. For the military context,
such an environment was trivial to envisage. What turned out, however,
was that the non-military real-world also displays unpleasant
operational behavior.
The Internet has long-since ceased to be a military-funded or even a
U.S.-centric effort. Any bias towards the North American continent is
artifactual and/or logistical.
If the Internet could, today, throw a switch and fix the character
set problem, I feel confident that we would. But there is a running
Internet and we are faced with making changes that occur gradually,
rather than cathartically. The nature of making gradual change requires
that relatively small, discrete problems be treated separately and then
introduced to the running net. RFCXXXX attacks the discrete issue
of enhancing email body structure. It has NOTHING to do with email
headers. Headers are important and certainly need an upgrade. And they
will get it. Soon. RFCXXX is the wrong place to talk about the change.
Dave