Ah, wouldnt there need to be an in-between point where it is possible to lock up some for a longer period, while keeping some available for short-term. Perhaps the barely used savings wallet could become the short term holding point with the combined steem between it and the SP being the voting power. This way the 5 day power down to lose all would only affect the savings wallet - it would need a name change :)
I think the Savings feature should definitely be improved where it's possible to choose how long a person can "Save" their funds.
AND
I think a person should be able to Power Up their funds as short or as long as they want but Voting for Witnesses & the #SteemDao should be reserved for people who Power Up for 13 weeks or more to prevent Exchanges from using their clients funds with no skin in the game to vote.
I agree the savings feature could be improved, but I disagree that extending the power down time would really affect exchanges that wanted to vote anyway.
Exchanges have to hold a lot of coins in cold wallet type setups while keeping some in the hot wallet for daily transactions. A large exchange could hold millions in SP while ensuring they have enough liquid on hand to handle the daily transactions. They could start a power down to increase their liquid, but if they have enough on hand, they can still power up, vote, etc while having enough to service their customers.
A simple way to analyze this is to look at extremes.
If there was a 1 second Power Down time exchanges would probably power everything up.
But if there was a 10 year Power Down time, they'd probably Power Up much less. So I don't think it is about the Power Down time not influencing them from Powering up but by how much.
P.S. I also didn't advocate for increasing the Power Down time but I want it to stay at 13 weeks.
I like the idea to bring the Savings account into the game at the same time. It's practically not used now.
Easiest would be perhaps two different account - one with a shorter and the other with a longer power down, with delegating SP from the long term to the "working" account.
Yes, but of the idea of communities and SMTs is about single account with flexibility. Thinking that there is a cost for accounts and a user comes in and then finds out they need to buy a second for security seems an unnecessary barrier. I would prefer simplification over complication, and that would likely be not looking into much of this at all and instead securing accounts in a better way, like 2fa.