This some great work on tracking down all of these measures to track users. I really hope we get to the point where dumb ads rules the web once more. Hopefully this results in more than a slap on the wrist, but I doubt it.
If they could, they would've already done so.
One of the things "the cleverest engineers to walk the planet" would probably need to do is to increase consumers willingness to pay for good content by a factor of ~10 for e.g. online newspapers with quality journalism to be profitable, which frankly sounds near-impossible.
After more than two decades newspapers still haven't figured out that even though I want to pay for good journalism I cannot subscribe to every newspaper there is, and I am a user who actively wants to pay.
I already voluntarily pay for two newspapers and involuntarily pay for the national news-and-a-little-propaganda service. Oh, and I donate to the Guardian half the time I visit them.
If more papers allowed me to pay per view I would likely spend more money on journalism.
But I'm not going to have another subscription right now, thanks.
Technical issues are mostly used as an excuse.
In the same vein, there may be engineers that enjoy working on this type of problem - how to identify someone that is actively avoiding you. The current iteration of Do Not Track mentality only makes the problem more interesting by putting up restrictions.
Until there is some sort of agreement among the relevant jurisdictions to greatly reduce the pain of this, direct micro-transactions with your site's visitors are likely to be a bureaucratic nightmare.
New ways of building things is the province of engineering.
New ways of making money is the province of MBAs.
Not that really matters; I doubt you will succeed in replacing ads with something "better".