re: Nerdpolling. Simply increase the time it takes to place the frames and/or remove the ability to build on top of them, OR require nails in the recipe for them. Plenty of ways to make it not cheesy.
people would complain that building a base would be very slow then.
What about this addition:
In general, placing blocks is somewhat slow, but when you want to excessively place blocks (for building a base) then you have to place a "construction box".
That box works as a storage where you have to put all your stuff in, and it then gives you a special "fast building tool" that you can get nowhere else.
Then you can build your base fast, and if interrupted by a zombie threat, you have to run back to the construction box to get your stuff back and immediately be combat ready again.
So it wouldn't give you a hard time with the little nerd poles (that are useful and necessarily ok in day to day situations for when you get stuck in a hole, want to get over a wall, or fell down somewhere, and stuff alike)...placing a few blocks taking longer doesn't hurt that much.
But it would prevent the cheesy big poles right to the top of a T5 rooftop...because it would either take very long (without the fast building tool),
and with it, you would get up there fast but without the necessary equipment to fight a zed or open those main loot containers.