After my thread a while ago about the weakness of editing content in Drupal (not just Drupal, most CMS have the same problem IMHO) I did some thinking.
I already use a Firefox extension called Mozex, among other things this allows you to use a local (and powerful/familiar) editor to edit a textarea. In general I use it with Wikis when I want to do some serious editing - start editing, get a textarea and hit CTRL/E and the textarea appears in my favourite editor (vile, a vi clone) on my local system. It gives me two big advantages, much faster editing because I'm editing a local file on my system rather than a textarea across an HTTP connection and a familiar editor.
So I wondered if I could do the same with the content editor in Drupal, and the answer is yes! :-)
If I set it up correctly I can pop up (for example) kompozer (the unofficial update of nvu) to edit my content in Drupal. It gives lots of advantages, mostly similar to using vi for a Wiki. I get *much* faster WYSIWYG editing because it doesn't have to go back and forth down an HTTP link, I get my choice of WYSIWYG editor, or I can use vi, or I could use Bluefish.
Whoopee! I may even try Drupal again, having tried a wide range of alternatives many of which trip over at the same place, rather weak (and clumsy) content editing.
I realise this is a 'one user' fix, it's not going to be a generic approach to editing in CMS but it makes a big difference for me and maybe this could be useful for others.