[ericpauley]

This ongoing "IPv4 with more bits" meme needs to die.

There was no way to change IPv4 to have more address space while maintaining compatibility with existing routers. Routers are hardware-accelerated so can't just support new protocols with a software update.

If you need a new protocol, why just lengthen the address without fixing other weaknesses, since you'll never be able to change it again? This is IPv6, and while you can argue some changes weren't necessary, it is simply not true say that IPv4 with extra bits would have been easy.