NAT didn't save us from insecure networking. It gave insecure networking an excuse that was just good enough to satisfy the masses.

This is worse for everyone in so many ways:

1. Forwarding ports suddenly makes you insecure, because you already were.

2. You have to fuck with your router config to even do that, and risk breaking something else along the way. Nobody should have to bother, because port forwarding shouldn't exist in the first place.

3. Many ISPs make it difficult or impossible to configure your firewall, let alone reserve a static public IP.

4. It's an eternal problem that isolates itself from any true solution. Any actually good UPnP implementation would just be stuck behind your NAT and firewall.

The entire premise "as long as you can control it" is the core issue, and the fundamental reason why NAT is the original sin. Without NAT, there wouldn't be anything to get control of.