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The big problem with changing to an 8 digit phone number (with or without area codes) is not the time it takes to dial or the quantity of phone numbers available. It is the secondary cost of every single phone number already in use having to be relearned, the cost to update every phone number listing that currently exists (from personal phone books to advertisements to business cards to the hundreds of other places phone numbers are conveyed).
If the phone company were to say "we're adding a digit to your phone number" the uproar would be huge. Governments would fall, lawsuits would be filed, widows would be left crying in the streets.
Simply requiring everybody to always dial the area code is a simple change that the phone companies can implement almost completely on their own with a minimum of collateral damage.
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