| It might be possible to reverse some of the complications (for instance, if we inverse the "2 Healing Surges required on a failure", it would be "no healing surges"). I don't have any new or unique ideas right now, but that is mostly due to an exam looming over my head. So I may give some more suggestions in a couple of days.
In regards to 4 checks per segment:
You could possibly split it up so a player makes a check, then a single conflict checks for failure, etc. Though it would need a fair way of doing this, as players would attempt to make checks towards the conflict that would be checked next. Either take them in order, GM's choice or just check the conflict with the highest chance of failure. | 
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