If you want less hitting and fewer hit points, a "fix" we are considering is making base AC equal to 8 plus proficiency bonus (works so at lower levels is equal to base 10). This represents higher level characters being harder to hit because of their experience in combat. Scale AC up for monsters with proficiency bonus greater than 2, basically add proficiency bonus - 2 to AC and its the same thing.
Limit hit dice to 9-10 levels, and then have 1-3 static hp and no more Con bonus.
Do away with death saves and return to negative HP. You can go negative equal to your first level HP. After that, you're dead.
Make a short rest 8 hours and a long rest 24 hours. If you want, slow down how fast hp is recovered by making a long rest restore 1 hp per level and a short rest none.
If you go negative, you need to rest for a week or something maybe?
Get rid of cheesy "oh, don't let the character die" spells, particularly Revivify. Worst idea ever in D&D IMO. For the most part, it makes death a non-issue after 5th level. Last session, an NPC our party was protecting died. TWICE. Solution: cast Revivify. Horrible, simply horrible.
If you must keep it, don't make it a guarantee. Make it require a check or something so the character has maybe a 50/50 chance of recovering and not dying.
But, I know what the OP means. If I could convince our group, I would at least want to show them 2E or even 1E or the box sets. Our DM has about 15 pages of house-rules for 5E, I had 3 pages for 1E and 2E--combined.
