Oh nice... I wonder what the costs are to make that change.

If no one was afraid of forced channel closures anymore then it would certainly have an impact on adoption. 

Coinosphere

funds could move into another lightning channel but this would require a spec update, something 

lightning

Can lightning allow closed channels to dump to lightning instead of on-chain?

funds could move into another lightning channel but this would require a spec update, something @ddustin has been calling “splice to close”