Sections

(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...

I think splitting is very much beneficial and needed. I could imagine there could be more "inline style" interface for translating pages, but it would still be based on sections.