Make sponge blocks stronger

Sponge blocks for the longest time have been used to suck up water out of an area, but I believe personally that the amount of water it sucks up, isn't enough. Plus, I find is strange that in minecraft. The sponge absorbs a SPHERE of water around itself. When Minecraft is a cube and square based game. My first suggestion would be to make it so it instead of absorbing a sphere of water. Make it absorb a cube of water around itself. And secondly, perhaps make a stronger variant by putting 4 or 9 sponges in the crafting table to make a sponge that can absorb twice or even three times the amount of water as the normal sponge can. And simply make it take longer to dry out in a furnace. I personally think this would be useful to survival players who wish to clear out areas full of water but don't have a large supply of sponges. As well as helping people who get greifed by having water poured all over their house. And it could give the Hoe tool another block it can break faster than the other blocks.