Only way i see to make passphrases harder to brute force is to use some sort of hash on the passphrase, one which takes a lot of cpu power to hash, and where a hash can only ever have one password which led to it. The signing and all that of tx.'s would be done with the hash, but the password to remember is pre hash. Dunno if i make sense but..
Passphrase = "1 happy Tiga"
Hash of passphrase(only "1 happy Tiga" can lead to it) is = "asdas23ed2cYGU8gH&*BUJBOINB*(&" (not really, just an example)
Now in order to reach that hash, it needs to be complex, and require a lot of cpu.
When you login to ur wallet, yes, it might take 2 seconds to just get the hash from the passphrase, but that is worth the wait to make it hundreds of times harder to brute force. In this way even a 7 digit phrase could be secure(as long as it has got letters/numbers/symbols).
tx.'s are signed with the hash.
Sorry if this is silly and makes no sense, it makes sense to me (also, I dunno about 7 digits being secure, just making a point i guess)
Yeah...my passphrase leak was all my fault....big thanks to craig, will defo do something to say thanks. Give him some of my burst

(it's weird, when he already had it all lol)