Sections
You underestimate it, it's very useful in any case :-p ; why do you think that's the essential feature?? I really can't understand.
For instance, it manages the list of existing translations for a page automatically, creates a list of translation requests, it marks them as outdated when the source is changed, AFAICS (will) allow review/proofreading with appropriate tagging, can allow automatic selection of translation to be shown to the user, hopefully can be developed to fetch automatically translations from where they're performed to where they're needed (protected namespaces on Meta or even other wikis like m:wmf:?)... the current translation system on Meta is a nightmare, you know? Also, perhaps it's possible to develop some interface to edit the translation as whole as you can do with the source.
And just to be clear, I'm not saying the splitting should be disabled entirely, but that there should be alternative ways to deal with split pages/paragraphs/sentences and that the splitting should be controlled on a per page basis (think also of the old translations which have to be moved to the new system)... at least, that's my confused feeling.
(I'm being serious here, not intended as a joke)
You appear to have gotten so stuck in the horrific translation process that Wikimedia's meta uses, that you're not seeing the extremely high barrier to entry and the lack of overview anymore. Take a step back and compare... And most importantly: use it.
P.s. This does not count as using it :) (2 edits)
What do you mean with "lack of overview"?
I don't think I'm stuck with Meta's system; I do know it, but I've never been very involved in it, and I've used the Translate extension way more and before. I may use the same argument: I think that the page translation may be too stuck with some concepts from the system messages translation features it derives from, and that's why I'm trying to provide some feedback that may make you see it from a different perspective and help us all to understand and explain better.
I do want to use it as broadly as possible, that's why I'm trying to understand precisely how it works and what's the best way to use it...