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I'm sorry: I was terribly mis-informed about who had signed the treaty: only three countries have not signed it: India, Pakistan, and Israel. Additionally, North Korea, which did initially sign the treaty, is clearly not holding up its side of the deal.
I think that the uniqueness of these few abstainers must be taken into account in order to understand why they are treated well even after they didn't abide by the treaty.
First off, India, Pakistan, and Israel never violated the treaty, so they weren't subject to its sanctions. You can't violate an agreement you didn't make. North Korea, the best example of a nation that violated the treaty, is not receiving the same cushy treatment being afforded to the three non-signees. And if you look at North Korea as your paradigm, and see the utter economic isolation and devastation there, it becomes much easier to understand why staying in the NPT is such a good deal.
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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
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