Agreed, it's pretty scary. On the other hand, I'm sure similar problems were tackled for y2k with the 2-digit fields everywhere. If we built it, we can rebuild it. Although a lot of software and hardware will need replacing/upgrading/switching over to new protocols.
They were, however, given that a lot of things have life in the field of several decades, now is the time to start fixing it so it doesn't become a mad rush. Yes, it means less money for devs 23 years from now as they madly rush to update software, but I'd rather that money be spent for devs to make future programs awesome than to worry about our ghosts.
