With regard to my cute bidding system, you essentially reduced it down to its base components: bid every round. Maybe it was not clear, but I was trying to communicate the same idea you shared, or rather trying to convince people not to get greedy and assume their leading bid from the previous round will hold up to save 1 token.
It was intended as an anti-sniping tool for players who have "dug in", to avoid losing out to a sniper.