I think a system that can allow for the real possibility of ‘abandonment’ may be needed. So something that can self-tidy after a reasonable timeframe.
Possibly something clever like the original pending item being deleted but immediately replaced with a duplicate so it looks exactly the same to the user but can then create a new reviewable in the queue when resubmitted.
Possibly also a delete-timer in a similar fashion to Delete removed posts after (with a more reasonable ‘revision time window’ than 24 hours)