This introduces data interoperability problems between the systems that have changed and those that have not. There will always be a requirement to communicate with non-conforming systems. No data standard is of any use when your communication partners have not adopted it. We also believe that some DOD legacy systems will be around much longer than many people expect. Information exchange with these systems introduces all of the data interoperability problems mentioned above.
Similar difficulties arise in scientific fields. .
Certain representation choices resist standardization. A key notion in data element standardization is that one fully defines the semantics and representation for each attribute of each entity type. This facilitates information exchange between systems that use a standard data element. No translations are required, because the name and representations are known to be the same. We believe that there are legitimate reasons why systems might need different representations for the same attribute.