You could try, but you run into the problem that people doing so always run into. The general public understands that resting for a bit of time really is restorative. The idea that someone might need to catch a night's sleep to replenish their energy is an extremely intuitable mechanic for a game to rest on. The specifics of how many X you get per day may be arbitrary and based on game engine concerns, but the recognition that a good long rest is a fantastic way to recover is not. That's why it's not the tail wagging the dog like the encounter-based unit for recovery is in 4e and why attempts to equate the two are generally rejected.
I might agree that there's nothing special about an hour, in particular, but it is substantially longer than 5 minutes which doesn't seem long enough for fully recovering from one death defying exertion to another. There's a reason most high performance runners wind down 10-15 minutes after their race and then rest more afterward and that's because 5 minutes isn't much rest time between major exertions. So yeah, I'd say there is an inherent difference in verisimilitude between a 5 minute recovery and an hour. And, again, that's easily intuitable based on our real life experiences.
Well, I'm speaking as a former fencer, aikidoist, and LARPer, and current weightlifter. I'm accustomed to 2-5 minute breaks between fairly short periods of heavy to extreme exertion, for the most part.
I agree that there's a meaningful difference between an hour (long enough to have a full meal AND a bit of a stretch and breather) and a five minute break (which is plenty to get a drink of water, adjust your gear, and return your breathing and heart rate to normal).
IME 10-15 minutes like you're citing is a good rest period for a period of exertion considerably longer than an action movie or D&D fight. It's obviously subjective based on our prior experiences, but I don't think that an hour is inherently any more intuitive a minimal break to refresh between fights than five minutes is.
To the contrary, like Voadam, I find that an hour is too long to maintain credibility with an action movie-style pacing, and I've seen this issue crop up with my 5E players. Where I've tried to provide a plausible safe rest spot in a dungeon, say, and I've seen them balk and conclude that there's no way they could expect to stay undisturbed for an hour. So they press on and don't take the rest. :/
I note that in OD&D and Basic D&D PCs are required to take a 10 minute break every hour of dungeon exploration, and that every combat is abstractly considered to take 10 minutes for exploration and torch tracking purposes. However many rounds it takes + the remainder for rest, a little bandaging, and looting the bodies.
A second wind is kind of cool and dramatic, and it was when it was introduced in SWSE. But you only got one a day unless you specifically invested in more. Making it a default feature that could be used every encounter deflated most of its dramatic power.
So you dislike it in 5E too then, for Fighters?
In practice in 4E it wasn't used every encounter, unless perhaps by a Dwarf, who got to use it as a Minor action (like the 5E Fighter with their Bonus action), as opposed to it being a Standard action for everyone else. In my experience most folks would prefer not to give up a full action for it, so it was only used when really needed. (except by Dwarves).
