I wish there was a sane third way. Like instead of "Speedy delete" (why the hell is that EVER necessary), maybe a friendly auto-merge suggestion ("Hey, thanks for your contribution! This article may not be notable enough to stand on its own, but your addition would be a very valuable addition as a new section of this other existing article. Mind if we put it there instead?") or something like that.

When someone spent hours creating something as a volunteer, they shouldn't ever be met with a choice of "Either convince our bureaucracy in the next few days that this is important, or you will lose all your work." That's an insanely hostile policy towards new editors.