I thought I had made my point pretty well. You are proposing to replace something that is really simple, always exact, and impossible to mess up with something that has none of those properties. People will get it wrong.
The current block reward calculation isn't any more exact than what I propose - when the block reward is halved, the amount of satoshis is rounded down.
It's hard for you to make a case about simplicity taking as an example a minute detail about one of the simpler aspects. If multiplying two numbers gives us troubles, I worry.
I'm not saying that anyone should reject the proposal simply because of this, but it should give you pause.
Clearly the proposal adds complexity. But the whole integer arithmetic thing is not it.
Also, I'm pretty sure that your idea will create total chaos. Not less forks, but more. Lots more. Like on nearly every block. Not at first, necessarily, but as the subsidy shrinks relative to the transaction fees for sure.
Did I say it will create less forks? I predict that the equilibrium found will be less than 10 minutes, which means more forks.
I doubt it will be "on nearly every block". As I explained, if it comes to that, miners will choose a larger weight which decreases their invalid rate.
Actually, miners will choose the weight based on whether they got the last block or not, and whether they are getting paid kickbacks to support/override blocks from the previous miner. For most miners, I think the best payoff would be prevDifficulty+1, except when they are working on extending their own block, in which case it would be the minimum, or close to it. The exact game theory optimum would depend the acceptable range.
As I said, honest miners will build on the longest (most difficult) branch they know. This is a Nash equilibrium - a miner will want to build on the longest branch, as that improves the chances that their own block will be accepted. Increasing the weight decreases the probability that their block will be rejected in a conflict.
You sure about that? No one will ever want to ignore an easy block and try to replace it with their own hard block?
I think it's possible to parameterize it so that this will be rare.
P.S. Read the bold part again. Warning bells should be going off as you do.
Not really. If I were able to predict what the market would do I'd be rich. I just want it to have the tools to find what's most efficient for it, and that's easier to demonstrate.