Anything that keeps the internal combustion engine alive is awesome. We can still improve on it.
I agree, and one place to start is on the whole reciprocating design. Converting linear motion to circular motion is not very efficient. A workable rotary engine would waste much less energy.
And I've often wondered about injecting gasoline VAPOR into the combustion chamber instead of particulate (atomized) gasoline. Liquid gasoline doesn't burn; it only ignites at the liquid-gas boundary of the atomized droplets. Wouldn't a proper air/gas mixture of vapor be much more explosive and avoid the loss of energy required for the state change from liquid to gas?