I noticed (using Search) that there wasn't any space for discussing ping in a more general sense, and figured that rather than put my idea in and add to the various ping requests, I'd open the general line of inquiry into it. Below is my specific idea, however.
It might not be a bad idea to add one more small functionality to the ping ability--what if it numbered the pings? Hold down Shift and hold your cursor down, it pings, labels it with a smallish 1 a few pixels from its top-right corner; further pings only take a fraction of the original hold-down time. Ping again while Shift is still held, and it becomes ping Two; ping Three, and so on, until Shift is released. At which time all of the pings fade away at once.