OpenLR is not just a protocol for data transmission, it specifies a whole toolchain from getting the data from the source map, encoding it, transmitting it and finally decoding the data and matching it to another target map. And this is what makes OpenLR so attractive. I know that location referencing is a by most people underestimated problem, but I think sooner or later OSM has to face it. And in fact there are no other location-referencing standards existant at the moment (except Agora-C which is patented and demands fees when using it).