without a mechanism to map the endpoint
identifier to an IP address, such identifiers are useless in
referrals between application components.
Not completely useless; they would prevent the problem of reaching the
*wrong* endpoint. This isn't much help if you have only one address
for the endpoint you want; but, if you have a global and a local
address for it, and you get the wrong HIP from the host that answers
when you use the local address, then you know not to use that one.
true. but requiring apps to determine which of several potentially
ambiguous (or obsolete) addresses is the one that reaches the intended
peer by trial-and-error does not strike me as an efficient or
desirable strategy.