I somewhat now see some arguments for changing the emission - best would be if could change the emission and adapt the current amount of coins accordingly, but I think this is really impossible.
maybe I am wrong and the social contract is less important than the fixing - I am really really unsure about this.
You can just slow down the block time and you will lower the daily inflation, but keep the same amount of coins. Why do you think this is impossible? Btw, I think that changing the total amount of coins will be perceived more negative than slowing down the emission..