The IRS rarely pursues decedents for missed RMDs, and they settle for the beneficiary having responsibility for only the year of death RMD. However, for living IRA owners, the LE stretch can usually be preserved by making up the late RMDs and filing Form 5329 for each year that the missed RMD was made up. Almost all IRA agreements provide LE as the default RMD method unless the beneficiary overtly elected the 5 year rule or the IRA agreement stated that if the first LE RMD was not distributed by the end of the year after death, the 5 year rule would be invoked. The 5 year rule cannot apply if the owner passed after their RBD, but if it did apply due to death prior to RBD, the waiver of 2020 RMDs also allowed 2020 to be non counted in the 5 year rule period, so the 5 years would end in 2022, not 2021. 
Regardless of whether the 5 year rule or LE actually applied to the beneficiary, the death of that beneficiary under the Secure Act would provide a 10 year rule for the successor beneficiary. This is an entirely different issue than exposure to the excess accumulation penalty for the deceased beneficiary. I don’t see any need for the successor beneficiary to attempt to restore the LE method for the decedent since that would trigger a year of death RMD the beneficiary would have to take, but under the 5 year rule there would be no year of death RMD due for the deceased beneficiary since 2021 was only year 4. 

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