It's worth exploring since it is a more palatable "non-emergency" solution. As for the current fork, be it HF or SF, I like the idea of a memory intensive POW. It would indeed remove China's hardware monopoly -- and subsidized electricity can be found in many countries.
One that simply transitions progressively from SHA256 to a single cryptohash, I don't think it would be very complicated. I guess it depends on how the transition is coded concretely.