Separate the networking part from wallet and GUI to reduce complexity.
Maybe the alert system could be modified to only warn the user with a predefined warning to go check the news because something is going on.
Interesting.. a hardcoded generic message that says "go check the news" could be helpful, however, who has the keys? it should require the signature of several trusted developers to guarantee they aren't all compromised, at least 10 signatures for safety imo, with developers that live in different timezones.
And still an attacker with enough resources could buy enough media to fool the public and use the generic message for their agenda. See this in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSoIt's not clear to me if the alert system does more harm than good or not. Ideally we just want to avoid these bugs. Lowering complexity is always welcome in Bitcoin... it just needs to store keys safe and not screw up during transactions, the rest is an extra. Of course, easier said than done, but as far as I know some of the "super minimalist" clients weren't affected by this bug, so "bitcoin minimalists" scored another point.