I think the first thing to do is to end the spiking in the last year in some pension plans. That would mean one takes the average of the 3 highest years basic salary, plus perhaps up to some limit like 10% of overtime in addition. If overtime exceeds the limit it does not count towards the pension, and unused vacation and sick time get paid but don't count towards the pension.
I think limits on overtime and sick padding are a good idea although I would like to see the pension payout based on your lifetime earnings much like SS is. My wife is in a pensioned industry where they already have the 3 year limit and most are salaried. However, numerous (and easy) opportunities still exist for employees to pad their final 3 years of compensation - many of which are required by state or federal policies. Averaging over your career would make padding much harder. That said I don't think you'll see any large changes in pension calculations outside of bankruptcy any time soon as the pattern seems to be moving along the lines of increasing contributions for existing members and moving to a DB plan for new hires instead of calculation of payout changes