I love the idea! Limiting apps would help everyone, the current system is ridiculous.
Another idea would be for all schools to offer single choice EA. This is where I kid can say - this is the school I really want but unfortunately I can’t commit to ED because of finances. Schools would know this was the students first choice.
Both my kids had clear match first choices, but we cannot afford to apply ED because of merit. They would have happily applied scea and if they got the merit they would have attended and not applied to any more schools.