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My first act as a TSA agent would be to beg, borrow, or steal a whiteboard for this purpose. They seem very content to explain it to every passenger almost individually though. Which of course slows everything down as someone has to ask every minute whether an iPad is a big or small device. I wonder if there's some weird bureaucracy rule that prevents them from writing their own signs.

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Doesn’t work. I was in a queue at SXF airport once. Everybody in the queue passed at least 5 whiteboard-sized posters explaining in detail that you need a 1 litre bag and what’s supposed to go in there. Also, what things you need to present at the check. Those same posters lined the walls of the hall. Yet basically every second person acted completely surprised when the security officer asked for their 1 litre bag. It’s as if those people forgot their brain at home and were all on autopilot.

Might be in part because multiple times I've seen signs/poster etc only good the agent to contradict it once you get there, adding or removing requirements. So you stop trusting it.

A whiteboard I might trust because it was likely handwritten that morning

No, from the conversations I overheard these people have never heard of those 1-litre bag rules for flights in the EU. So, they clearly haven't even looked at all those posters.

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