Hm. I certainly think what you would like to do, but believe impossible, about 5321bis sounds good in principle. Pete and I had breakfast this morning and he talked me around a bit on the asynchronous vs. synchronous thing. I still think there's a pony in there, but he had some good points, and I can see how to get what I want using his methodology, so I don't think I need to push the point. One of the things I learned rather late in my short tenure as AD is that sometimes you need someone to evaluate rough consensus who is willing to make some participants unhappy, and that that willingness is actually rare among people who call consensus. That is not necessarily because they wouldn't be willing in principle, but that they don't actually understand how to call consensus. I think a lot of the non-terminal discussions we have in the IETF actually fall into that category, and your 5231bis discussion may qualify. Failing to call consensus in this way can result in the community losing interest, because they rightly perceive that they are wasting their time. I'm sure you've read RFC 7272, and may or may not agree with me on the point I am making... :)