> In that sense, it’s actually pretty surprising that so much of the world’s population wasn’t able to put their own name, in its native written form, in an email address until just 14 years ago.

Maybe for some internal usages. but imagine someone from a country using different language and characters gives me a card with their email. It's now far less portable for me to use it. Those days, I surely could picture it and find the email most likely getting it right.

But email as means of international communication, like passport, should be readable as possible or it kills its purpose.

Even with ASCII emails I have, I already sometimes struggle to pass them over phone or other methods :)