Agreed. It also solves another problem in Japan, namely that brand names etc are usually written in Japanese letters, but URLs in ASCII (yes, I'm aware of IDN,

Agreed. It also solves another problem in Japan, namely that brand names etc are usually written in Japanese letters, but URLs in ASCII (yes, I'm aware of IDN, but haven't ever seen it used). This is obviously not limited to Japan, I wouldn't be surprised if other countries used the same trick.