I actually don’t have to imagine because there already is analysis of “new user edits” (over and above the rate limiting at the API level) and yes, as a number of new users can testify, that has led to automatic account blocks.
Unfortunately it’s a little more complicated than "some basic heuristics like a dirty word list ". Taking this account as an example (one of the three involved here), it started vandalising at 2:08 UTC and finished at 2:09. The DWG detected it as a problem at 2:11. The vast majority of the data was reverted within 68 minutes of that (there were as noted above a couple of objects that got missed)…
Looking at the initial vandalism by the account above, https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/6336333/history/144 wouldn’t have triggered even George Carlin’s bosses back in the day, and even if it had it would have bought us a whole 120 seconds of extra notice. The challenge with map edit-based blocking is that it is by definition after the event, but the alternative (at the API level, or even somehow at signup) is much harder to do. If anyone thinks they can solve that problem, then all suggestions would be gratefully received, but it really needs to be testable code rather than just ideas.
To get back to the original point
I actually tend to agree with that - but more to help e.g. the board think through the effects of some decisions. For example, the tile CDN allows OSM’s “standard” layer to be slurped by all sorts of organisations and suppliers to organisations for free, which immediately cuts out of the loop anyone who might have asked “so how up to date do you want the data on your website to be” who might have talked through what the implications of the answer to that question were. The net result of that is that the DWG then gets lots of emails from people who are upset by what the “free pony” that they were given previously is now saying.
Edit: “changeset-based” changed to “map edit-based” above because almost no-one consuming OSM data feeds is waiting until changeset closure; its all based on minutely diffs. There’s a separate feed of changeset metadata, but that won’t help you find e.g. a turn restriction relation that has grown dozens of extra objects in it.