Per the recent spam, it seems like one issue that causes compounding problems is nodes that send long chains of unconfirmed transactions that need to get resolved, but some of those transactions get lost in the backlog, or end up as forks that need (and struggle) to get resolved

Would it make sense to change the default node behavior to only send if "previous" is locally confirmed, unless overridden by a "force" option? That might help shrink backlogs, allow for easier fork resolution, and prevent potential work re-work

EDIT:

"A better solution to #3166 (don't send unless previous has been confirmed) has already been implemented here #4454 afaik. Instead of limiting legit services to wait for the previous confirmation, all the PRs in the network wait for the previous confirmation before publishing the block. So we have the best of both worlds. Reduced traffic and no artificial limits for legit services that want to publish all their blocks at once."