NAT is a stopgap and doesn't address the underlying problem, only delaying it. NAT works well because of certain assumptions about network infrastructure that are less and less true every day. We are rapidly approaching the day when everyone will have (at least) one /30 (or its IPv6 equivalent) assigned to them, which will burn up the address space very quickly NAT or not.
I bet one of the desires is that each person be assigned an IP to allow their internet activities to be much more easily tracked.