Dale Carnegie once said, "a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language". That applies to domain names, too. Having your own name with a .com on the end is pretty cool, and easy for your friends to find your site, too. How about in Japan, wouldn't it be easy to tell your Japanese friends your katakana domain name with a simple .jp on the end? How would you feel if some other foreigner in Japan snapped up your name before you? Jason got his .jp domain name, I got mine, now how about you?
Who Soc'd It?
Most of the people I've met in this country have a hard time remembering internet-related sites, so it's only in our best interest to make things easier for them
As I've said, the domain name is less important, not completely unimportant. A good domain name is always a bonus.