If that is the problem, to make it more compelling, then you're simply advocating a pay raise.
Equity is called compensation but anyone who is working at their second startup should understand that calling that is misleading at best. Since the average tenure at the 'first startup' is about 2 years, consider it a 'masters program' in learning about what is and what is not compensation.
So if you're going to take equity in lieu of cash you need to understand how to compute the expected value of equity. And in early stage companies its almost always zero. In an acqui-hire sort of situation it is zero and your retention package is based entirely how important you are to making the eventual use of the technology successful. Doesn't matter if your a founder or not, if you're not useful you get nothing, if you are you get something.
But lets step back and ask the question again, if "equity" is the deciding factor in your decision as an employee to join a startup, then you are clearly doing it wrong. If you want equity to mean something, join a company that is already publicly traded, then those ISO options or RSU have real dollar value that you can compute using Black-Sholes or any other method. Stock in a pre-series B startup exactly equivalent to the collected wishful thinking of the founders and investors. And all of them know that if they get their money back they will count themselves lucky.
What is broken then is not how we compensate people coming into startups, it is the misconceptions they have about how startups work, and the fundamental fact that "stock in a startup" is even on the list of things they want. All you can ever ask for is interesting work, people that are fun to work with, and enough salary to pay the bills and put money into a 401k. If you have all of those as an employee than any stock you get that happens to become valuable is all bonus.