You, like the other poster, seem to be assuming that nobody has tried "can we improve the existing ..." using the obvious tools. I find this attitude both puzz

You, like the other poster, seem to be assuming that nobody has tried "can we improve the existing ..." using the obvious tools. I find this attitude both puzzling and patronizing of the people involved. Without specific knowledge, is seems far more likely the obvious things have been tried by reasonably intelligent people. As you say, it's what pragmatic people do (and it's usually still more complicated than the intro textbook versions) Now I have no specific knowledge of this particular problem, but the article does suggest it is something that has been tried before (rescheduling) and failed for various reasons. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, why won't you? Really I'm objecting to the idea that "if only we could have found a math undergrad, this would have been improved years ago". That's a particularly naive view.