On the 'death penalty' thing

> distributing GPL code grants a new license each time

I'm not sure that it's been tested in court but that seems like a reasonable interpretation, you don't have the right to distribute at all if you are not compliant and every compliant distribution doesn't require individual authorization by the copyright owner.

> corporations don't know for sure in advance what the SFC will require

That doesn't really seem to be true, the SFC has stated many times that all they require is that general compliance efforts be undertaken and that their expenses be paid.

> The main problem is uncertainty

If that were the main problem then no one would every go into business, businesses deal with uncertainty and risk all day long. Unless you think there should be some government-mandated certainty of risk, certainty of profits, etc. there is going to be some amount of risk and uncertainty in business.