Jeremy, here’s how I see judgment in the NT. Point 3 in particular needs detailed defence, which can’t be done here. I have a book coming out later in the year (The Coming of the Son of Man, Paternoster) which makes the case for reading NT eschatology for the most part within the frame of the NT’s own foreseeable future.

1. There is a judgment of rebellious Israel, which is realized concretely in the destruction of Jerusalem and the termination of the religious system of second temple Judaism.

2. There is a judgment on the ancient pagan world and in particular on Rome (Babylon the great) as a political-religious regime implacably opposed to the people of the covenant.

Romans 2:9-10 has both these ‘judgments’ in view.

3. There is a judgment (in a rather different sense) of the early confessing community of Christ’s followers, the church that is called to suffer as he suffered and be exalted as he was exalted, at the vindication of the Son of man - that is, at the parousia. I regard this as something that has, in effect, happened within history, and I suspect that it is what Paul is referring to in 2 Cor.5:10.

4. There will be a final judgment of all the dead on the grounds of what they (we?) have done, which will precede the destruction of everything that is unworthy of the new creation - not least death itself.

I still don’t see the need to posit an open-ended suffering of the unjust (or unjustified) after death - rather than as part of the process of destruction (to put it rather clinically). If you want to make a case for this, why not start a new thread?