Ed,
We agree that the net has never been entirely homogeneous, and that it
would be a Bad Thing if people were forced to make their local nets
conform to someone's idea of the Right Way to do their networks.
Thus, I have few problems with folks who want to use NATs within their
local networks and who understand and accept the limitations of that
approach - even though, as you are fond of pointing out, this is an
example of a local optimization that is sub-optimal for the global
Internet community.
OTOH, I have a big problem with constraining and/or encouraging folks
to use NATs, while misleading folks about their limitations; and with
attempts to make NATs a part of the Internet architecutre and thereby
forcing everyone to accept those limitations.
Thus we are objecting to much the same thing - not only the attempt to
constrain what people can do with their local networks (e.g. preventing
folks from getting global addresses) but also the attempt to constrain
the kinds of software that people can deploy.
Keith