There is no reason it should not be easily possible to develop a Bitcoin wallet that has an integrated name to address mapping feature. It might be a good idea for a software product, it could even be based on Bitcoin Core. There is no specific reason that people wanting that sort of feature could not use it. In fact, you could map names, strings, email addresses, it could be very flexible.
Relying on an additional service like DNS which is flexible enough to handle the job, does introduce an additional availability risk. There is no additional privacy risk provided each mapped name or address is only used once to send/receive one payment unless you directly use something personally identifiable like an email address which could be used to map bitcoin addresses to an individual. Personally, I am not concerned about privacy so much but can understand that some highly value their privacy.
If you get it right it will be a service better than namecoin transacting in Bitcoin. If you think that is valuable, go for it.
Regards,
Damian Williamson