Maybe an indicator of the total estimated processing time for a block could be added in the block headers, and limiting the efffective processing time to this.
or advertising the number of sig op in the block more explicitly from start, and limiting the number of sigop processed to this,as mining nodes are already supposed to know this, if a way can be found not using too much extra bandwidth.
Maybe we could activate segwit, implement Schnorr sigs, stop worrying about O(n^2) attacks, and enjoy the other benefits like Lightning, tree multisignature, fungibility, etc.
/common sense
of the miners are refusing segwit.
Segwit is dead in the water. Time to move on.