Okay, so right here you've got a reason why namecoin won't be adopted. There is a critical mass of many, many memorable names. These organizations already have them in the current system; don't have them on the namecoin (since someone likely is squatting on them) and, as you say, have no reasonable way to gain them w/o paying extortion.

Due to network effects, namecoin won't replace ICANN without making it better for all those organizations; and due to the core nature of namecoin, it won't be better for them.