[politician]

It'd be interesting to experiment with pairing this to a proof-of-work system (e.g. Hashcash) to smooth the transition between toobusy and !toobusy. With an additional signalling mechanic, it could help the surge against peers in a cluster when one server begins to struggle.

Though you'd need a custom client, so maybe for appcache'd webapps or mobile apps, but not typical webapps. Or browser vendor participation (not serious (ok, half serious)).