XRI solves what real problems?

I still don't know what real world problems XRI solves.  They posted a wiki page called XRI solves real problems.  Looking through it, most of the material is about discussions with the TAG and where XRIs are being used, but very little about what real problems are solved despite the misnamed title.   Let's go through the page step by step. 

W3C Statement about the XRI 2.0 Vote

A summary of the TAG's position posted at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008May/0078. 

Executive Summary of XRI Technical Committee Response

Here's where the FUD starts. 

1. Assert that they answered and the TAG did not respond.  Actually, the XRI committees responses were basically non responses, usually just quoting material.  The TAG's position *IS* the TAG's response.  At some point, when people won't communicate clearly, you realize there's a time for an official response.

2. No mention of the real problems solved, just what groups are using XRIs

3. A good pointer to the use cases.  Use cases and requirements are excellent things.  However, those documents describe what I believe are problems that are not sufficient to justify non-http URIs.  I spent a lot of time working with Henry Thompson on http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/URNsAndRegistries-50 where we showed that http: URIs were sufficient.  Now we didn't finish that document, but mostly because we realized that there was nothing that we could describe technically that would stop the XRI community from doing XRIs and charging money for names.

4. No mention of the real problems solved.  Note the FUD where the claim is made that "URI Schemes are off-limits to innovation", when the XRI community has regularly claimed that XRIs are not URIs. 

XRI TC Efforts to Communicate with the W3C TAG

A reasonable description about interactions with W3C TAG.  However, there is no mention of the real problems solved.

The Problems XRI and XRDS Are Solving on the Web Today

Again, a phrase like "deployers were telling the XRI TC that they deserved full OASIS Standard status due to the real problems they are solving in the market today" which is just obvious marketing fluff and no mention of the real problems solved. 

OpenID 2.0 

Again, mention of how the technology is used.  The XRDS solution and in general metadata discovery is a different problem than a new naming authority and naming scheme.  So not related to XRI.

The 2nd and 3rd bullets are potential real problems solved.  This is perhaps the only meat in this document on real problems.  However, I am absolutely convinced that ID recycling and resolution can be done with http: URIs.  I certainly don't see the need for the costs of deployment of a whole new naming authority and naming scheme. 

Higgins 1.0

Marketing reference.

I-Names and I-Numbers

This is the real problem of how a vendor can get our $$ instead of a domain registrar.  But that's their real world problem of generating income, not the rest of the world's real problems.

Identity Capabilities Description

A number of references to a workshop, that could be a very useful link to follow.  But I have a feeling that XRI sessions didn't contain a lot of people saying "but can't we just use http: URIs for this?".

Conclusion

My conclusion is that I just don't see the need for giving a different naming authority other than domain registrars our $$, and why =david.orchard is so superior to david.orchard.name or my http: openID that it justifies the complexity of specifications and harm to the web.