Many moons ago, some proposal or other came up for better imports. I agree it would be nice to have a better syntax, and I like the idea here. :) I had time to think about it back then, and I wrote down my thoughts here: https://github.com/chreekat/blatherings/blob/master/haskell-imports.md#alternate-proposal-2
In case 'require' ends up needing the full power of 'import' (which wouldn't surprise me), maybe the description at that link can spark ideas.