I don't think anyone denies that UDDI is a small step (though the UDDI folks probably dont' favor 'miniscule'). Rather than claiming to be a total solution, the UDDI executive whitepaper says "UDDI is a building block to enable businesses to quickly, easily and dynamically find and transact with one another". (Somehow that got turned into "UDDI is the building block" on the front page of uddi.org - I'm assuming by an over zealous marketing person. What can you build with one block?)

No one expects the first incarnation of UDDI to automate as complex a business transaction as switching 3 inch valve suppliers. The idea is to get everyone on the same platform so we can begin to automate what we can.

I believe the expected first version process is something like: A human queries UDDI for "companies that do X", finds a list of companies that do what they need, and then (returning to exist processes) individually researches each of them, contacts the one that look legit and has the best price, and strikes a deal.

Then hopefully soon people layer on some kind of trust mechanism and some better filtering capability and the query becomes "the cheapest company that does X and has been in business for Y years and offers so-and-so guarantee", cutting down the research part significantly.

And so on until twenty years from now all sorts of redidulous legal contract type stuff has been automated and the CEO just says "make it so".