Since some of us have added what we would do if we were the executive producers of "Wheel", I add my two suggestions. One not so drastic and one that's sacrilegious.
1) Make changes to the Wheel layout. We've had this same layout (meaning placement of the big money space, lose a turn, free play, and bankrupts) since 1997. Let's move one of the bankrupts two spaces to the left or move the free play to the opposite side of the wheel. Maybe add a $750 and a $850 space to the wheel. Just freshen up the Wheel. One of the problems the show has was a few years ago it decided to make the minimum value of a good spin $500, and since the season where they cheapen some of the spaces, nearly 2/3rds of the wheel's spaces has a value from $500 to $700. Rather than coming up with a new gimmick to differentiate between seasons, change the wheel layout.
2) Raise the cost of vowels to $1,000. I'm serious. Vowels give a lot of valuable information for the puzzle, and even if you find only one letter in the puzzle for $500, you can get TWO vowels and a lot more information. This could change the strategy of players knowing that the information you get from vowels would cost a big chunk of your score.