So I just dealt with a transaction in pending hell because I made a mistake. In doing research I found

1. this actually happens to a lot of people. Mostly newer, but at the rate of people running into this. It isn't something you can walk backwards in.
2. the current no timeout system makes it less user-friendly.

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Solution:

A simple solution is a timeout function within ETH that you can opt out from. So basically, if a transaction has been in pending hell for a week or 2 (after x blocks) mark it as dropped.

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What could happen is there could be a way to opt out. Like if the transaction says "no timeout" then it opts out. On metamask or whatever this can be done mostly on the backend and this gives the user the ability to use some checkbox or whatever if they wanted to opt out of this.

If you opt out then it should basically do what it does now.

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Beyond this obviously the guides will have to be updated, and people will have to be inform the average transaction after x date will timeout after a week or 2. The person can override the transaction like they do now if they didn't want to wait or they opt out.