Quite possibly, though I wouldn't be so sure. Even small changes may be useful (if there's a chain reaction as it were) to stop things escalating either so much or so quickly, even if it's mostly ignored.

I don't have any info on whether it's mostly new accounts or randomly anyone that is likely to post rule breaking stuff so I'm aware I'm guessing on a lot of this.

Being able to turn it on for a particular thing makes sense (e.g. any political story) - my first thought on top of your suggestions is

* Show if under X karma

* Show if discussion has more than N flagged comments

Things seem to work pretty well here, hopefully there's some tweaks that don't change that but lower the burden for you and others.