I think one of the implicit responsibilities of a TD is to keep the event moving along at a reasonable pace.
I also think that, given an announcement at the player’s meeting concerning how slow play will be dealt with, effectively puts a rule in place and resolves your concern.
Lou Figueroa
It is true that one option would be to announce that there will be penalties for slow play, and then enforce those penalties in a manner that speeds the finish (like awarding balls). But which player do you penalize unless you actually watch the whole match -- which is not possible?? If you are penalizing both by awarding balls, then basically you have gone to one of the two rules that was just put in place at the Buffalo's tournament.
At the recent Buff event there were two stages of penalty. First off to be 100% clear, everyone played 100% traditional rules all the way UNLESS they fell behind. The first penalty rule that kicked in only after 2 hours of slow play, was the Grady Rule, for all subsequent games (not started mid-game). Then if the match still wasn't finished by 3 hours, the 2nd penalty rule kicked in, which was each player goes to 6, not 8, for all subsequent games (not started mid-game). Going to 6 is like awarding each player 2 balls, correct? But not as a sudden penalty mid-game, so they can be prepared. This rule only came up once at the Buff's event. The Grady rule came up several times and seemed to be handled fine by the players.
There was one issue of a player who had been penalized earlier in a long match (And yes, it is usually kind of predictable players that run into this, but obviously not just Nick Varner), who assumed he was going to 6 when actually his match hadn't got to that stage yet, and he mistakenly raked the balls abruptly when he had scored 6, which resulted in him forfeiting that game (and match). There is no accounting for a guy raking balls without double checking with his opponent, no matter what rules you are playing by -- it is just a bad idea.
The solution to the one guy wedge problem is a TD with the calzones to tell him to knock it off and shoot at his pocket. And if he doesn't, to start penalizing him, perhaps awarding balls to his opponent. If you know the game you can pretty much tell when a guy is passing on shots most would shoot at, in favor of excessively passive safties.
Awarding balls is quite similar to going to 6 except it simply applies to both players, and both players are informed prior to it going in to place.
