No D&D game yet has done a good job with rests. NWN 1 and 2 let you rest after every battle, and you were full health. Solasta works, but it's only because it is more linear. The old BG games were just annoying with random encounters or you had to painstakingly travel back to a rest area, sometimes through multiple area maps. You could still rest as much as you wanted, but the price was being annoyed.
I still think the best solution is tweak the current system. Forget the whole limiting short rest to only two. Instead, implement a camping supplies cost for short rest that is much more reduced than long rest requirements. It should be based on character level and number of party members that you have currently in your party. One camping supply per character level in your party. So, if you have a party of four level one characters, a short rest would only cost four camping supplies. If you have a party of four level four characters, a short rest would cost 16 camping supplies. Thus, the cost is minimal, but a short rest also does not provide all the benefits of a long rest. Wizards and clerics still don't recover full spell slots and you still don't recover to full health. You can short rest virtually anywhere as long as not in combat, symbolizing that you did find some rest area that was safe and you took an hour to bandage yourself, eat some food and drink, and recover your stamina.
Similarly, the long rest should be a bit more realistic in that you need to feed everyone at your camp. It wouldn't be just based on who you have in your party, but who you have at your camp. Since it would be the primary meal of the day, it should cost two camping supplies per character level at the camp. So, if you have six characters at your camp that are all level four, that would cost you 48 camping supplies (6x4=24 levels x2 per level). If you can't pay the total cost, like it is now, you only get partial benefits based on how many camping supplies you use. In this particular example, if I only had 36 camping supplies my party would only heal 3/4 it's health and spell slots, and if they only had 24 camping supplies, they would only recover half their health and spell slots. And so on and so forth.
This creates more of a strategy to the gameplay. How many camping supplies are you going to keep on you versus how many are you going to leave at camp? How many members of your team are you going to take with you at a time, knowing that the more you have with you the more it's going to cost just a short rest? How many are you going to keep with you at your camp versus telling someone to leave, knowing that the more people you have at your camp, the more it will cost just to Long rest? And, it causes players to think about how often they are really going to rest, knowing that every rest is going to deplete some of their camping supplies.
So rest as much as you want player. Just know that if you abuse the system too much, it's going to cost you more in the end, because you're going to have to go to the vendor to buy camping supplies in order to keep on resting as much as you do.
And while we're on the topic, I do agree with those individuals who think that there should be a literal area on the map for our camp. It does bug me that it is literally, as Raphael himself puts it, middle of nowhere. There are plenty of places that the mini camps could be designed to mirror instead of being mini camps that are some sort of nebulous room or chamber that exists somewhere that you can't really reach on the game map itself. Why make the mini camps and the main camp exist nowhere?
So, for example, if I long rest on the beach, why not have the mini camp look just like the beach near where the door is to the dank crypt? If we long rest in the dank crypt, why not make the mini camp look just like the room with the fireplace, the dining table, etc.? If you long Rest in The Grove, why not make it look like some private corner of the actual Grove? They could even make it so that you can't leave the certain area where the mini camp is, and make it so that there is no one around, but make it look like an actual location on the map that is recognizable to the player.
And finally, I still would love for them to implement some sort of semblance of time via time-based events. I know I've mentioned this before, but I still think it's a good idea. By time based events, I mean things that happen because you long rested a certain number of times. I don't mean that missions are locked out or that you failed them because you took too many long rests. I just mean that something happens when you long rest a certain number of times.
Long rest three times after you find out about the ritual? Rath steals the idol, disrupt the ritual, and it is forced to start all over again. He is then locked up in the prison area and he is no longer able to help you in any way, unless you break him out. This is just one example of what I mean. It would provide players with more complications if they take too long by using too many long rests, and it adds to immersion and helps to create some semblance of time.
