Great post RT - Thankyou.
As a man who has seen seen the benefits of getting a third party to enter the route for him I'm hopeful that the future can involve this tech. If that became routine for entering the clearance through the NAT in my book that would just be fantastic. Interestingly, it would probably swing away from the ARINC waypoint format to just using LAT/LONG which I see as a bonus.
CPDLC route entry above was shown when ATC invoked a ground stop due TS so we shut down in the deice bay in BWI one summer - The controller there zapped 3 different (and complex!) routes to us via CPDLC inside 3 minutes which placed the route on the ND alongside the weather radar returns - Ground stop resolved, we started again and got going - Simply stunning use of technology.
MIX of LAT/LONG vs ARINC entries. As you've guessed by default we get the ARINC format uploaded. When we get a direct to a waypoint on the Atlantic (quite usual for Gander to give direct to 50W) then that comes up as a direct to a lat/long and the FMC offers you a 'load' button to load that into the route. But as the FMC doesn't recognise the similarity between that point and the ARINC point you then get a break in the route that needs resolving. If the route was uplinked as the clearance (as lat/long), then this would never need resolving which would be fab... Even if all aircraft can't accept the route, to have the facility to send it to those that can would be awesome...