One issue I have with rolling out a new form of encryption to replace the current Gopher protocol is that old clients will become obsolete and less useful.
Even if an encryption algorithm is decided on and widely adopted, clients will need to be updated to use it, meaning compatibility for older clients (which happens to be one of Gopher's core strengths, try surfing the modern web on NCSA Mosaic for a day) will be tarnished.
As it stands, I can use Gopher comfortably on Mac OS 9 with Cyberdog, Windows 95 with WSGopher32, old Java-based phones, and apparently on the Commodore 64, but yet also a high-speed broadband connection on my PC and Android phone. Trying to enforce some security standard on the entirety of Gopherspace will mean the earlier hardware will be more obsolete than they're already considered to be.