Just like probably everyone else I've thought about this for forever, and it definitely seems necessary to have less of a hard cutoff at 5 minutes where the workload goes from potentially huge to low.
Though I share the concerns about making longer songs too inaccessible for newer players, so my personal idea of this has always been "Maps >4:00 and <5:00 need to have at least two difficulties, one of which must be a Hard or below". If we want to expand this to 3 minute maps, same thing with three diffs and maybe additionally set the requirement of a somewhat even spread but allowing it to be with only 3 diffs (to avoid N-H-7*), though there doesn't seem to be that much of a shortage of maps in that range so I'm not sure it necessarily needs changing.
A rule like this would also make banning mp3 extensions much more reasonable fwiw, since adding 50 seconds of R3 music box will no longer mean you need to map/get GDs for 20 minutes of drain time less. I've always been in favor of that under the condition of a more gradual spread requirement based on length.
Though I share the concerns about making longer songs too inaccessible for newer players, so my personal idea of this has always been "Maps >4:00 and <5:00 need to have at least two difficulties, one of which must be a Hard or below". If we want to expand this to 3 minute maps, same thing with three diffs and maybe additionally set the requirement of a somewhat even spread but allowing it to be with only 3 diffs (to avoid N-H-7*), though there doesn't seem to be that much of a shortage of maps in that range so I'm not sure it necessarily needs changing.
A rule like this would also make banning mp3 extensions much more reasonable fwiw, since adding 50 seconds of R3 music box will no longer mean you need to map/get GDs for 20 minutes of drain time less. I've always been in favor of that under the condition of a more gradual spread requirement based on length.