actually, i think that canon did the right thing (within the bounds of their obvious marketing requirements of making it noncompetitive with their cinema line).
they wanted a camera that can be used only by amateurs for video while being as high quality as possible, and they achieved it.
the timer based thermal regulation makes a lot of sense if you think about it from a manufacturer's perspective:
the internal temperatures are getting dangerously high during demanding tasks like 8k recording, and they are not sufficiently regulating this, so they are shutting down before instant damage occurs. but the other danger is long term damage from constantly cycling between overheated and cool conditions, especially for "cold solder" development, or even cracked circuit boards.
so they used intentionally "misapplied" thermal tape to actually slow the dissipation and employed a timer that won't allow the user to generate those dangerous temperatures again for 2 hours. this way it slowly cools either to a safer operating temperature or completely to ambient temperature, depending on whether it is shut down completely or re-engaged after 20 minutes for photography only. this was a wise setup within the restriction of being a consumer use only camera. they should have been more upfront about it however to prevent the conspiracy theories (which were partially correct, but not taking into account the longevity factor listed above). they underestimated the intelligence of the user to be able to understand their rationale, and in doing so have harmed their reputation for years to come.
and to make matters worse, they pushed out that firmware "upgrade" that reduced the timer values, which will almost certainly shorten the lifespan of the camera.
but their accountants probably decided it was better to appease the ignorant masses and sell more cameras even if they will be facing a lot of problems in a few years... probably looks better on their balance sheet. let's face it, they are probably counting on exiting the consumer camera space by then anyways thanks to cellphones as cameras...
so this hardware mod is an excellent idea in conjunction with proper thermal monitoring to ensure the camera is not being operated at dangerously high temperatures, which should have been done properly in the first place, regardless of marketing ideology. it seems likely to me that the code is already in there, just not exposed to anyone but canon service personnel (for now!)
