Be aware that if you do it too often, the pause goes away. I don't even think anymore about putting "sudo" in front of whatever I'm doing because I simply do it so often. And 99% of those are legitimate - my day job requires root access for significant portions of my code to operate, while even my home computer, I'm the obvious sysadmin, so I'm zipping around the linux boxes with a sudo ever at the ready to solve my or my wife's issues.

That said, given the risk/reward ratio, the low number of times it happens, the small amount of effort it takes to undo currently, and the ill effects of such a mistake, I wouldn't think there's enough downside to the current system to warrant a discussion about a better system. I'm sure there is such a better system out there, but having been convinced that "the perfect is the enemy of the good" - this system is "good" enough, we don't need to tweak it into the perfect. Just my $0.02CDN