True, but I prefer this version compared to the current death penalty we have, and I have a feeling that a lot of players will feel the same way. Death, in the scenario I am now describing, is like being knocked to the ground and you are just beginning to regain consciousness. The A18 version is the equivalent to someone kicking you in the ribs - it may hurt, but you can recover within a reasonable amount of time. The A17 version, on the other hand, would be like that same person who would have been kicking you is instead sitting on you for thirty minutes, and you cannot move. Both are meant to be penalties, but the former is a punishment, whilst the latter is a grave annoyance (pun not intended) that you just want to be rid of.
While one could argue that dying and having to slither your way back to your backpack, which could be a km+ away, is punishment enough... Even if that statement was universally accepted, if you were to die within a 5 minute walk between your bedroll and your backpack, it's not so much a punishment, just a small slap on the wrist, which in my opinion, is poor game design. There's a reason why hardcore is so popular among some people - it gives living an extra incentive. While the average player chooses not to play hardcore, if there was no punishment to dying, some would just shrug off at every death, and at that point, they'd might as well put themselves into god mode, since death would be meaningless.
Edit reason: grammar corrections.