It's Time For a Hard Bitcoin Fork

IANABME[1], but it seems that a solution already exists to this problem, which is to use a decentralized mining pool. The unfortunate fact is that we're in a time window right now where large miners have not yet transitioned to this ideal solution.

However, any miner in the long run would prefer to join a mining pool that does not require trusting some pool operator over one that does, all other things being equal.

Yes, the current situation is dangerous for the health of bitcoin, but I don't see any solution besides waiting for distributed, trustless pool technology to catch up in terms of usability with the centralized pools.

This problem isn't going to be solved by a hard fork, as any "fixes" done this way are untested, incomplete, and risky.

[1] I am not a bitcoin mining expert

I don't know why you're suggesting anything along those lines, it doesn't look like the author's link to a method to stop pool mining has anything to do with restrictions like that. It seems instead the author links to a post about allowing arbitrary participants in a pool to steal the entirety of the mining reward. Thus, there would be no incentive for individuals to participate in a pool: whoever finds the solution could take the entirety of the reward.

This kills the GHashA.

You're assuming that someone with a significant investment in the space would act dishonestly. That's the only reason BTC fails as the result of something like this. Seem like MAD to me, if they were to act dishonestly they would destroy their own investment and profit potential.

Rather than a fork, wouldn't an alternate, easier approach be to form more pools that charge no fees?

From the bitcoin wiki:

An attacker that controls more than 50% of the network's computing power can, for the time that he is in control, exclude and modify the ordering of transactions. This allows him to:

    Reverse transactions that he sends while he's in control. This has the potential to double-spend transactions that previously had already been seen in the block chain.
    Prevent some or all transactions from gaining any confirmations
    Prevent some or all other miners from mining any valid blocks

The attacker can't:

    Reverse other people's transactions
    Prevent transactions from being sent at all (they'll show as 0/unconfirmed)
    Change the number of coins generated per block
    Create coins out of thin air
    Send coins that never belonged to him