One underappreciated benefit of the lack of national ID is it forces the system to deal with a plethora of different IDs, and therefore makes the lives of those with rare forms of ID (such as foreigners) much simpler.
A nice idea, but in my experience that's not the case.
Quite a lot of financial institutions will still only accept a US state-issued driver's license to open an account with them, even though they generally accept foreigners.
I've even encountered one that accepts only driver's licenses and not (also DMV-issued) learner's permits or non-driving IDs!
