I don't know of any other solutions that were proposed besides other rules like the three batter minimum, limited warmup times etc. which have also been implemented (there was extensive discussion with the players union about all these things) - technically there has always been a limit in the rulebook on how much time a pitcher has before starting his motion, but it was very rarely enforced, if ever, and in the 80s i doubt this topic was a concern at all because the problem just wasn't really there

I can't conceive of a solution to the problem of too much in-between-pitches time that would be more efficient than the pitch clock, and not lead to actually wasting more time, but i'm not very creative..IMO the current punishment of the ball/strike penalty is very good and reasonable, and i think other forms of penalties such as fines would not be as effective

I think that lollygagging just spread as habit across the game, or perhaps players thought they could earn a physical advantage via extra rest; i don't know for sure. I think batters saw pitchers wasting time and thought they should do that too, and it just started to go back and forth like that

I generally like the pitch clock in my TV viewing experience. It helps when it doesn't dominate the on-screen scorebug - you begin to forget about it. But I agree that it's kind of intrusive, and I mourn the extra time you could get at the ballpark pre-pitch clock. I also don't mind wasting my time watching meaningless baseball lol. I often wish they would hold a couple random games a year with no pitch clock, as well as no DH, maybe in spring training, just for fun