The major problem here is that far too much effort was put into accommodating everyone by including them in the eastern time zone. Last time I looked, I think something like 48% of the US population lives in it, and it's just unnecessarily large. Obviously there are benefits, but it creates a ton of perverse consequences too.

Realistically, the eastern time zone should probably stop between OH/PA, west of West Virgina, east of TN, etc.

But of course we'd then need 5 time zones to cover the continential US to keep other time zones from becoming far too large.