Alex, you have known me for enough time, I would expect you to rightfully assume I understand hardforks. In any case the answer is yes.
I don't think we need a feature freeze, we just need to think more carefully about the spec changes schedule.
Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention, I'll send it to our developers and J.R. for consideration.
Cryptocurrency is secure only under condition that there is a consensus among all clients. If you cannot guarantee that, that means that cryptocurrency you're developing isn't secure.
By "guarantee" I mean that you can prove that problem like that cannot happen under certain assumptions. Of course, bugs are possible, but you need to demonstrate that you're doing the best effort to prevent problems.
If you're piling on features instead of implementing secure update mechanism that means that security is a low priority for you.
I think this problem was brought up many time before, I don't see why it is news for you.