I don’t think you should calibrate your suggestions to the first couple months of 5v5… matchmaking was bugged, and people were (are!) still learning how to just play the mode, full-stop. You saw a lot of gameplay situations out of control of players leading to bad K/D/A stats… Map awareness and meta-knowledge is still improving for lots of folks who aren’t used to it, and it wasn’t uncommon to see a T4 stuck defending their lane against a T9 turret pusher, with no help in sight. Your choice there is to either lose the game or die trying…
As matchmaking recovers, and people get sorted better, and people just learn what the heck they should be paying attention to and doing on the Rise, the situation will improve.
I think the spirit of your idea is to discourage dying, which I agree with, but the death timers are first and foremost a game-length and volatility mechanic, and only secondarily a player behavior mechanic, so they’re not really the appropriate place to target feeding. If you want to address risk/reward calculations, you have to look at what effects player performance without changing the meta flow of gameplay. Stuff like gold, items, and stat buffs, while balancing against snowballing.