Smaller punishments with more tickets would still mean having to deal with paying a ticket, which is often more annoying than a small fine.

I think moving the goalposts and changing the rules from "any speeding gets you a fine" to "excessive speeding always gets you a fine and lesser speeding can be grounds for an ad-hoc fine by a present officer (who would explain how speeding was dangerous in that particular situation)". It would hopefully get rid of the feeling that unaccountable machines are preying on our missteps while allowing reasonable police officers to discipline unsafe drivers. You could still of course have police who are just out to annoy others, but I'm not sure that something new ticketing laws can fix.