2nd Edition: Dance with Death

Unlike previous editions, 2nd Edition focused on settings and characters, and continuity of characters. While it was, and still is, amusing and fun to have a D&D campaign with frequent mortality, (and I like it in Dungeon Crawl Classics) it's not so conducive to a lot of 2nd edtion games. There have been various house rules and official rules and optional rules to tamp down on the lethality of D&D, like the -10 hit points rule, or making death saves, but really all these rules are saying that we don't necessarily want characters to die when they're knocked down to 0 hit points. So why not just say that? There's an excellent aphorism "Don't call for a die roll unless you're willing to accept the result"
If a character is reduced to 0 hit points, they fall down and are no longer a participant in the combat unless they get healing. That character is not dead, but badly wounded and can be tended after the encounter ends.
So what about save or die? I'm not too concerned about effects like petrification, which is curable. I'm tempted to say that any instant death effects reduce the character to 0 hit points, and the aforementioned "fallen down" rule is still in effect.
That leaves disintegration. Well, my thought is to keep it rare. I still believe in having some monsters and abilities that are very dangerous, but not something for the characters to encounter in every adventure.