How did people solve this problem in other games? Having played most editions I don't know how the problem really differs between editions. In 3.5/Pathfinder we have wands of CLW and when the caster runs low on slots we long rest. In 4e players could just use their dailies and rest, and in basic we could leave a dungeon and spend a night camping to regain spell for the wizard, using any spare cure spells to get more than the 1hp/day.
Unless I'm playing wrong, nothing fundamentally changed about the nature of pacing between editions, other than in basic it takes a week or more to be "fully rested" and in 3.5 onwards it only took a night. I distinctly remember in 4e when I was running my players through some one shots I made, they always had some time pressure. In an investigation they quickly realized that their target would murder again and wanted to stop it, in another they realized there was a ritual they needed to stop. In pathfinder, in the adventure path as things got to higher levels there was an external threat they needed to prepare for. As a player in an adventure path for pathfinder right now every single book has some sort of threat with a timer that we are uncovering, we always feel like we are one step behind and blow through money and spells to get to the next encounter. Having a time limit has been the only way to ensure the players aren't at full strength for every encounter, outside of explicit effects that change how resting works. Even suggestions to change the resting rules don't change the fundamental problem. No matter how you measure and do resting, without some outside force the party can just rest until they are at full strength.
