Comment by colmmacc

The transition to 7200 VXRs as core routers really hit a tipping point around 2000. They could handle millions of entries in the FiBs and really led to a relief in pressure. Subsequent devices had to match that.

On the IPv6 side; by 2002, nobody was really experimenting with A6 records any more, and EUI64 was needless. Both were parts of IPv6 designed to facilitate "easy" renumbering, so that single prefixes could be replaced with larger ones. But the ISPs weren't complaining any more about table size.