... lower the starting block from 26850 to something closer to where we are. ... Would it make sense to everyone to lower this to block 26815 or so in order to start the Kimoto Gravity Well sooner?
We need to give everyone the opportunity to update their code and there are still a few pool operators that have not confirmed that they've upgraded.
Coupla days ago, Fedora TIPS was also suffering from an acute case of multipoop difficulty syndrome. In their case, the community rallied round and brought some serious hashing to bear and hosed away the remaining blocks in just a few hours, instead of the expected near-interminable several days.
Sure, give the pool operators a little more time to upgrade but the pool I use is reporting the last block found as "184 hours 54 minutes 38 seconds" ago and, as you observe in r/mooncoin, the degree of that delay is causing the wallet to report (what it's been told to be) a synch loss.
In the absence of heavyweight community assistance, there does seem to be a strengthening argument for reducing the collective agony by deploying the KGW as soon as practicable.
edit invisibel notes, on the TIPS experience:
"Sorry I made you guys go through that, I should have made it kick in sooner, but I thought we'd get to 51000 by the 6th"