I think each point above is true -- BCP38 is indeed a technique, but failure to universally implement it defaults to (almost) a tragedy of the commons.
After ~10 years, it is surreal to me that we, as a community, are still grappling with issues where it could be beneficial for the Internet community at-large. I mean, it _is_ a BCP.
The community isn't grappling with the issue. For the most part the NANOG community has implemented BCP 38. The problem is that there are lots of ISPs that are not part of the community and I get the sense that the this number continues to grow. In a sense NANOG has a problem with dwindling market-share. A shrinking percentage of ISPs are part of the NANOG community, and NANOG participants have less and less influence on decisions in the ISPs that they work for, probably because most of them do not work for ISPs but work for telephone companies which have expanded into the ISP business. And yes, I too work for a telco that is now also a major ISP in its telco market area. p.s. Even when Dan Senie and I drafted RFC2827/BCP38, we were doing nothing more than documenting what everyone (well, maybe not everyone) already knew
anyway -- that we all need to bite the bullet and just do it.
Personally, I think that the network operations community represented in NANOG needs to do more outreach to forums where the telecoms community gather rather than ghettoizing Internet ops and engineering. It's all well and good to have NANOG lists and meetings, but once things like BCP-38 reach consensus, how many NANOG members would consider going to something like FutureNet Expo and presenting on the topic? --Michael Dillon