pools learn in seconds if their block is going to be accepted.. they wont just continue for 16 hours HOPING merchants adapt..
pools learned this lesson the hard way years ago..
.... by other miners. We are in the scenario where all pools agree upon a protocol, and the full nodes want another one. Pools only care about their block being accepted by other miners - if that's the case, their block is not orphaned, but is now part of the immutable history. The few seconds is exactly that.