Hello Tristan,
I have seen a situation that was quite like this during a WSOP super satellite in 2010 and the TD, I must say, made an awesome ruling, IMO (it helped me a lot on future situations).
That tournament payout had 20 places being awarded a $10.000 seat into the Main Event and the 21st place would get $9,600. There were 23 players still in it and they had already started playing hand-for-hand when I arrived in the room to watch the action (a friend of mine was playing).
The three tables were playing reeeeeeaaaaally lsow and players would get out of their seats all the time to watch the other tables, look for the shortstacks, etc.
One of the tables was, as in the OP, folding all around.
After three 20-minute blinds the TD warns all the players that if they do not stop stalling and don't start playing for real he'd take hard actions to "encourage" them to play poker.
Three more 20-minute levels go by and nothing changes. At that point the TD stoped the clock and took three perfect actions:
1 - He made a seat redraw of all players
2 - He separated the tables, puting each one in a corner of the Amazon room (that's freakishly far
)
3 - He made all leves 10-minute long from that moment on.
Players realized that they had no business stalling and shortly after the satellite was over.
That, IMO, is creative thinking at its best to solve a problem most of us have gone by.
About the side note (the cashout satellite): I think you could have some problems if, lets say, a player runs as hot as the sun and quickly ends up with like 100K on a 5K starting stack...
However, I love new formats and new ideas, I'll try to think this format through a little further.
All the best,