A few things:
1) I think you have misconceptions about what higher level arena looks like with regards to speed races. We're in a tank/slow meta. A lot of the speed teams are bomb oriented that are set to counter Stone Skin/slow teams.
2) A lot of it is on the player, in both directions. There are going to be people who bring very slow, very tanky teams that are meant to draw out fights via attrition. As we're picking champions in live arena we need to be thinking how we're going to deal with that, and that includes our builds outside of it and what we're bringing (and banning) during it.
I see people making mistakes during in the fights themselves, bannings, choices and I suspect these are often causing the stalemates. That's one reason I push back on the idea that the format - perhaps outside of timers - needs wholesale rules changes.
3) Live Arena in general does feel/seem slow at times. I still think we should be planning how we're going to spend less time in it via making better choices in champs, teams, bans, gearing.
I know the earlier you are in the game - or the later you are in the game against tougher competition - the more restricted you can be in options. I still think it is worth trying.
I don't think I agree with draws, ramping dampage, any of that really as solutions. There are solutions out there involving block revives, bombs, building multiple DPS well. I do think that if I were limited by options, I'd be spending more time on the gear grind, figuring out what champs I can bring up if I really wanted to do live arena at the expense of other progression, so on and so forth.
In essence this is a very similar problem we've all faced in really all content, just under a different name: It is still figuring out how - and when - we can tackle a piece of content.