But Erik, you are trying to have edit wars solution be based uniquely on 
2 or 3 wik-like people, while there are many other very regular and 
sometimes very respected contributors, who actually sometimes get into 
edit war and reversion war themselves in the heat of the moment.

For Wik-like people, yes, a temporary ban may be a relief. Now, for 
regular editors, I think it is a bad solution.

Suggestion :
What about a different policy depending on whether editors are listed as 
"frequently involved in wars" people ?

For those "problematic users", for example, though not mandatory, any 3 
reverts session could grant either softban or page protection or 
slow-editing for 24 hours. Without the sysop doing the ban or the 
protection or the slow edit having to justify himself or to argue he did 
not commit sysop abuse.

However, none of these three actions would be mandatory. People could 
still consider applying one or another, depending on the person.

Now, for people not listed as "problematic", only page protection could 
be applied, eventually, after a certain number of reverts.

As for listing people problematic, I can just suggest a poll. If over 
75% wikipedians agree a person is problematic, well, he may undergo 
harder punishement than others.

This will allow people like Wik to be blocked after 3 reverts. So, 
satisfy you and others.
This will allow regular users only to see only article protection 
occuring for 3 reverts in most cases, so might satisfy all those against 
the ban for 3 revert rule.

This should satisfy both those willing to stop editors like Wik, and 
those saying he is part of the project.
This will sent him the signal "better behavior" -> "lighter punishment"