If a LARGE GROUP OF NETWORK PROVIDERS (that's us, btw, nanog), decided TOMORROW that WE will assign address space and route to it, there is no force in the world that will charge for it, or be able to change it.
That's what we already have. IANA is in charge because the people who own the physical plant -- that's the multinationals, larger nationals, government, military, and other gigantic users -- think IANA is a good solution for the time being. IANA delegates its address assignment authority to registries (RIPE, APNIC, and ARIN/InterNIC) whose operational guidelines are set by and reviewed by open forums made up of the people to whom addresses are allocated, with some oversight/assistance from IETF. If the people who own the physical plant were to somehow jointly decide that some other system would work better for them, then that other system would be in place (or die trying) pretty much instantaneously, with no relevant fighting. (It's worth noting that confusion over the ownership of the physical plant is what makes Karl, Eugene, and Jim try to do what they're trying to do with ".", but it's probably not worth discussing over again.)
Here's the Ehud Scenario: 1. Tomorrow Paul Vixie gets a pirate hair up his dec alpha and puts in 64.in-addr.arpa. through 126.in-addr.arpa. in F.
This could never happen. I am not an address or domain assignment authority. The chosen focal point for the will of the owners of the physical plant is the IANA, and my root (and gTLD and iTLD) name server(s) will export exactly what the respective domain owners put into their domains. No more, no less. Wait, I can feel an example coming on. Consider these data elements: LOCALHOST. in a 127.0.0.1 1.0.0.127.IN-ADDR.ARPA. in ptr LOCALHOST. When I was first delegated F, I put these in since they are a standard feature of all "my" other name servers. However, a few days later the little light went on and I said "oops, I just polluted the global DNS name space with stuff the IANA did not authorize" and I took it out.
2. We start assigning nets from this block (64/8-126/8). 3. We start routing to this block (ok, I don't own a backbone yet, but let me use "we" meaning nanog for now ;)
This is exactly what happens now except that "we" is larger by far than NANOG.
Let me know if I've left something out.
What you've left out is that the model of Internet self governance has been in use since before the U.S. Military thought it had allowed such, and is in use now even though it looks rather autocratic to someone who does not know from whence IANA and RIPE/APNIC/ARIN derive their relevance.