"There is no hard and fast rule of thumb, but if a kicker posts accuracy greater than 90% in two out of three seasons, he is worth investing in because of their ability to provide above-average performance on a regular basis. While one season is often too small of a sample size to provide meaningful data, kickers showing the ability to repeat quality performances multiple times in a small window are worth investing in."
Disclaimer about hard-and-fast aside, what is this based on? How many kickers in the league this year, for example, have been >90% in two of the previous three years? And isn't this remarkably crude? The issue is not overall accuracy percentage, I don't think. If Gostkowski were perfect on extra points, but 0-4 on kicks outside 50 yards, I don't think people would be as concerned. But we're talking about the kicks he's supposed to make. He's 25/28 on extra points and kicks inside the 40 this year; 89%. The league average was 94.6 last year, and is 95.2% this year excluding Ghost. That means he's almost two misses behind league average on these "easy" kicks already. And that doesn't include the 30-yarder missed against Carolina in the preseason, or the Denver extra point, which began the trend.
And for the same reason, Baltimore "being rewarded for its patience" with Justin Tucker in 2014 and 2015 seems off base. He was 54 out of 55 on FGs inside 50 yards, and 71 of 71 on XPs in those two years. He's missed only one kick inside the 40 in his career, compared to Ghost's three already this season. Fluctuation on 50+ yard kicks is to be expected, and seems acceptable as long as the baseline of easy kicks is reached.
I would be interested to know how often a kicker in the bottom quarter of the league in accuracy on these "easy" kicks bounces back to the upper half of the league in a subsequent year.
I should note I agree there is almost certainly no better alternative currently available. I just think that, despite your disclaimers, there's a certain Baghdad Bob quality to your post, when the problem appears pretty real (especially in light of your excellent mechanical breakdown).