The current bootstrapping mechanisms are working pretty well and we can scale them as demand goes up. If you’re unable to connect through IRC or the alternate built in seeding system then you can always use -addnode=1.2.3.4 to specify the address of a running node. Once you have discovered a node and connected you will get the addresses of all the other nodes via the bitcoin protocol and don’t need the seeding systems to be able to get on the network. Even if IRC failed you could use one of the addresses from the Static IP Address thread here to connect the first time.
Re: On IRC bootstrapping
Figures: Laszlo Hanyecz