But this doesn't seem like a viable solution. Imagine that the average joe has to find out this forum, make a thread, ask for it and then get in contact with some member that has ties in the mining game... this is nuts.
How much time would OP need to wait for if he doesn't tell anyone and just waits as most people should have to do?
Around 72 hours at most before that transaction get dropped by the network and allowing him to create another transaction. Can take longer if someone keeps rebroadcasting the transaction.
Tho I doubt that most average joe would tinker with the fee without knowing anything. Especially with blockchain.info wallet where it's hidden until you click advanced and have a "?" mark explaining what it is.
It does say the miner confidence (miner's fee applied was ok? I don't know what this really means.) that was sent was ok.
It's not miner confidence. It's just Confidence which is calculated by the number of nodes with that transaction and Miner preference which doesn't have any explanation (I guess it involves the priority and fee of the tx).