I agree with your points. Polling is not the right approach IMO. A much simpler approach would be to use the following script as a bookmark, and hit the bookmark when you want to see the changes:

javascript:(function(){var%20s,i,x;x=document.getElementsByTagName('link');for(i=0;i<x.length;i++){x[i].href=x[i].href+'?'+new%20Date().getTime();}})();