An 'involvement' indicator would be useful

The idea I'm trying to get across is some kind of instantly recogniseable visual indicator of how much work is involved in a task. A colour like the 'severity' field, or a colour applied to a whole task row would be good.

Alternatively, modifiable severities could be used for this. The way I see it, the due date of a task has a big bearing on the priority of a task, so 'severity' could be freed up for a little more scope.