As it stands now, a domain name owner in the current system probably has more risk from domain hijacking than authoritarian censorship.
So the main feature of Namecoin - to provide a censorship-resistant, cryptographically untamperable set of domain name records - is also its biggest disadvantage, as recovery of any stolen domain names is entirely up to the goodwill of the thief.
This reason alone would make it very unappealing for most domain name owners, because as well as going against the established domain name system, it must also break societal expectations of redressing thefts through legal means.
"So the main feature of Namecoin - to provide a censorship-resistant, cryptographically untamperable set of domain name records"
And the above means zilch to the majority (let's pick an arbitrary 95%) of domain name owners (source: I am intimately involved in this business since the start and deal with these owners)
Do people seriously think that the millions of existing domain name owners are going to undo years of marketing effort for something that they don't even need? Local restaurant for example has no issues with censorship at least with respect to their website.
I agree. It may have a solid use case in providing name services alongside existing anti-censorship, anonymised networks like Tor and I2P, but for mainstream use Namecoin provides no benefit.
So the main feature of Namecoin - to provide a censorship-resistant, cryptographically untamperable set of domain name records - is also its biggest disadvantage, as recovery of any stolen domain names is entirely up to the goodwill of the thief.
This reason alone would make it very unappealing for most domain name owners, because as well as going against the established domain name system, it must also break societal expectations of redressing thefts through legal means.