I think the issue is fans and judges have highly variable ideas of the goal of a Mixed Martial Arts bout.
We think of it as a fight and we call it a fight. Earlier in the sport's history it was closer to a fight in the street, but even then it was different.
It's not a fight. It's never been a fight. So the object being to "finish the fight" is flawed. Finishing a fight means incapacitating your adversary until they can't possibly hurt you anymore on one hand. On the other it means use whatever force necessary to escape harm. Either way the primary objective is minimize harm to yourself. Not necessarily dole out maximum harm to someone else.
The sport version of a "fight" has taken this idea and added scoring mostly on the side of how much harm you dole out, which isn't necessarily the top priority in training or competition. And realistically, from a labor perspective, fighters have always communicated queasiness about focusing more on a finish than doing things correctly, according to their training. Any judging reform thus has to take this reality into account in the way it gives and takes points.
In my view, Pride scoring, which allowed judges to take a more interpretive stance on what the fighters were trying to do and how well they accomplished it over a long followed by a shorter round, is the best way to approach things. It requires highly skilled and trained judges that have a clear and uniform rubric for interpretation, but it also would require rule changes that might not accommodate Western attention spans and wouldn't be commercial friendly for American television. In the 10 point must system we're always going to be debating individual rounds and judge subjectivity is going to play a much more consistent role.