I think it’s a great idea. The whole idea of timers run off of the power cycle has always been engineering bastardy. Bad design, bad engineering.
The stability of frequency (actually, cumulative cycle counts) across a grid was only a secondary effect of a grid in which breaches could be easily healed.
Tolerance experiments like this, even if well intended (such as heroic efforts to keep power going in a heavily sabotaged grid, even if the frequency walks up to 61 Hz or down to 59 Hz) really need to start in the lab. This can’t be like trying to cut over to Y2K capability in 1990.