Dunno about everyone else, but my usual editing sequence goes something like this:
- Make a change
- Type an edit summary and set the watch/minor checkboxes
- Preview
- Save or go back to 1.
Yes, so does everyone's, that's because we don't have an interactive message box to type into. Behaviour will change according to features.
Let me also say this: if your typical editing behaviour is to open the edit box, change some little thing, and save it immediately, then you're one of the culprits of the edit conflict problem. You're the kind of user that the "please don't edit this" message is aimed at. Some users want to spend longer editing and reviewing a change, and they shouldn't be penalised for their extra dedication to correctness.
I'd like the edit conflict to 'rise' on step 3 (preview), sometimes it's not worth even finishing the edit, as someone else has done. What is frustating is writing a some paragraphs (with their previews) only to find an edit conflict with 3 people that ended quite ago. It doesn't need to be anything complex. A line near "This is a preview" saying "This page has been edited" would be enough. It could be expanded to say it was [[User:Foo]], a diff... But the base is being informed that someone already changed it.