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It makes lots of parks and open areas in places that people don't think of as being near airports into unintuitive no fly zones. Or take a city like Tucson where nearly everything is within 5 miles of an air force base. Which I'm sure every university student realizes.

That it's a total restriction in those areas is absurd. There's no reason for the space below 40-50 feet to be restricted anywhere.

It's not a total restriction. You can fly at the airport if you tell ATC and they clear you. Though that specific scenario is unlikely, I've seen emails from hobbyists to ATCs asking permission to fly within the limits and they approved it with certain hight restrictions (below the trees in one case).

My proposition would be graduated flight limitations. I cannot see any reason to not fly my drone 100 feet in the air 4.5 miles from the airport.