I wasn't around for the broken era of Flaming Humbaba imbalance, but I do remember when Flaming Humbabas were super-unfriendly, and you had to undershoot... I think the current mode is vastly preferable to the previous states, and yet, I think perhaps the Flaming Grinder buff can still stand to be improved.
Given that Lag is a fact of life for a substantial portion of the players, and given that lag can result in non-functioning verbs at very inconvenient times, perhaps a buff that is so very time-sensitive as Flaming Grinder is not really a good idea?
Perhaps, instead, the Flaming Grinder could work like the silvertongue and shrine powder buffs, having a duration measured in utilization, rather than time, or even a combination of the two. If the buff were to wear down very slowly (say, a 2 or 5 minute timer) and then speed up when grinding (so that optimal timing would produce the same effect, or slightly less to balance out the effect currently lost to lag and timing which would be recouped by this change) then using Flaming Humbabas would be more of a fun part of the game and less of an oddly stressful interruption to the general timing and flow of playing Glitch.
It's extremely frustrating to guzzle a Flaming Humbaba and then immediately hit my Grand Ol' Grinder only to see the Working indicator where all my verbs belong, and know that I've just lost the drink and will get at best 60% of the grinding out of it that I had planned.