Eric> NAT is what has prevented us from returning to the pre-1978 situation.
Keith> this is true only if you believe that [blah blah blah]
The situation today with NAT is that hosts in separate realms can only
communicate in 99% of the desired applications,
to the extent this is true, it's only because the only applications
that people become aware of, are those that can run over NAT. many
more useful applications exist, but since they can survive only in
less restricted environments, they aren't as well-known.
Granted, it's easier to talk about the evils of NAT than to explain how
billions of new routable addresses are going to be added to the existing
routing system.
if you're willing to constrain those billions of addresses to use
a single path to the net (as NAT does) then the existing routing
system does just fine.
Keith