Everyone is discussing this over in the perennial DST thread too, of course. In a post there, I made three practical suggestions:
Briefly summarizing:
- Incremental approach: Set clocks forward 3 minutes a day (or 21 minutes once each week) for half the year, then set clocks back likewise the other half of the year.
- Congress should decree an extra hour in each day, with the stipulation that it be a daylight hour.
- From the OP:
“The obvious problem with permanent DST is that it as it would mean dark mornings in the northern states.”
This clearly suggests we should have horizontal time zones rather than vertical ones: A Southern zone, a Mid-Latitudes zone, and a Northern zone.