I don't know your application, but sometimes the best solution to a specific problem is fixing the general problem.
Years ago, the Ampex VPR-3 video tape recorder had an innovative capstan motor.
It used a "printed armature" or printed circuit or pancake motor.
The rotor looked like a copper web that had been squashed to a disk.
You can see some photos here (and of other motors):
http://www.et.byu.edu/~chasek/ME%20472/Motors/electric_motors-USoW.pdfThe advantage was that it had very low inertia for high acceleration.
Because this motor was so powerful and the rotor (or armature) so light weight it could overheat easily some thermostatic protection needed to be included.
Instead of actually measuring the temperature, they decided to make a circuit to model the thermal characteristics.
And that's how they implemented thermal protection.