Abandon all hope, ye who enter here
Fragment of a discussion from Talk:May 2011 Update
Yes, it does take time, decades/centuries. I saw a great comment from w:A_C_Grayling on development of knowledge gathering - "At times sceptical challenge has been seen as a serious threat to the project of attaining knowledge."[ref1] He was talking about progress in the middle-ages. It appears Wikipedia finds itself maturing through its own dark ages. Just a few centuries for you to wait. A lot of the user talk pages I have visited have a finality to them with a shared common experience of their work deleted over time.
Suggestion: The "no loss of knowledge when editting" campaign should get higher visibility.
[ref1] Ideas that matter, by A C Grayling (2010), Page 168.