That would be great if you knew what trap your opponent played... but of course by their very nature you don't...so, no... You CANNOT interact with traps... AT ALL without heatwave.
And even if you can make an educated guess which trap they played, you still can't do anything about it in most cases. So if you're pretty sure they just dropped the N00B horn, for example.. You have to either spend heatwave, or potentially 2+ other cards to make up the eight points you know are coming when you pass... It's Obsurd!! Make it trigger when YOU pass instead of your opponent and see how that feels!!
I Stand by my opinion that there should be more than a single very expensive way to deal with artifacts, including traps.
Essentially you're saying "Viy is fine, just play cards that give you more value.". Or "Mq Ball is fine, just don't give them any valuable targets." Or "Eist is fine, just...pray.". Makes no sense..
Honestly, I have never seen an argument which is more confusing like this one; where you say you can't know which trap the opponent played. That is what a trap is. It is like you hate Hide and Seek because people Hide and you have to Seek. When opponent plays a trap, which are all over-priced and mostly don't play for their value, it is to trick into thinking that it is something else and to get some value out of the "it is a trap" surprise. How to play around them, I will cover for you later.
But you being angry on Horn is actually very amusing and funny for me. It is an 8 for 8 in the best case. If you kill the unit on one of its side, it is a 4 for 8. Horn's only purpose is to make you think it is a Crushing Trap or Serpent Trap and make you pass. That is its only soul purpose. On its own, it is very very mediocre and in high level, even in trap decks, people don't play Horn.
Well... if an opponent plays an 8 point unit. I can deal with the 8 point unit. If an opponent plays an 8 point trap, I can't deal with the 8 point trap. Unless, as you allude, I keep enough removal on hand to clear the entire enemy row before I pass... Which is, again, absurd. And I would hardly ascribe playing multiple cards on a single row as "setup"...c'mon.. There's only 2 rows.
I am glad to see that you reluctantly agreed that something could be included to deal with them, though. Although your idea is terrible; A completely dedicated card that costs more than over half of the units it can deal with and has 0 additional utility? So it literally is a brick in a majority of the matches you play? I think if you're being intellectually honest with yourself, you can see how ridiculous that is.
Ultimately, lucky for you and me, it's not up to us.
If it is instead an 8 for 8 unit, how would you handle it? You kept saying 'if it is a unit I will handle/interact with it'. You would do 8 point damage on the unit? With rockslide? Instead, kill the unit on one of the side and you are actually taking value out of the trap. Even if you can't remove the units on the side, that stupid card has played for 8 points at the most. An 8 for 8 in the best case. What is your problem with an 8 point card playing for 8 points? Of all the traps, this is the most interactive trap for the opponent, and least proactive for the players.
Now, coming to the myth that traps are un-interactable and only Heatwave is the answer, let me try to explain how you can play against/around trap:
1) Opponent plays a trap. Mostly they will throw Incinerating Trap first. Play your 4P card. If it is incinerating trap and if it kills the 4p card, then be happy about it as the opponent played a 5P card to remove your 4P card. Now, if it is Pitfall Trap and kills your unit, be even more happy. The trap is nullified. If you had to play an Order unit with < 5 strength (I think all valuable order units are moved out of 5 point range making this card even more junker) and if it gets killed, it is the same effect as having your unit killed with a 5P removal card.
2) Now, the trap hasn't ambushed. Then it can be either Crushing Trap, Horn or Serpent Trap. Play your card on the row with lesser units to play around Crushing Trap and see if it is Crushing Trap. In this turn you can confirm or eliminate Crushing Trap. If it is Crushing Trap, you have been brilliant and removed 2 values out of it by playing around it.
3) The trap hasn't ambushed in 2 turns now. Now, it is either Serpent Trap or Horn. If you don't have any tall unit play a special card to trigger it. If you do have a tall unit and want it to stay alive, avoid playing special card and laugh like crazy since your opponent played a 7P card which is going to kill your lowest unit. If it is R3 and you have to play a special card, then either play a special early to have your tall unit killed so that this trap is out of the picture. If you can not avoid the special card, then the opponent has got value out of his Serpent Trap.
There are only three "if" conditions here. If it has triggered when you played a card/unit (Incinerating/Pitfall). If it has triggered on the next turn (Crushing Trap). If not, it is either Horn or Serpent and play around this. In all these cases, please be rest assured that most of the times the traps play for much lesser value than their provision cost in this hugely powercrept era.
I know, with Hattori and Ioverth you can't completely eliminate a trap once it is ambushed as it can be replayed or spawned. In either case, the best course of action is following the 3 "IFs".