People reading the answers are more important than those answering - there are a lot more of them. Sure, people answering provide the valuable content, but most

People reading the answers are more important than those answering - there are a lot more of them. Sure, people answering provide the valuable content, but most are not put off by the editing as you seem to be - if an edit is made, it is clearly marked that it has happened and can be reverted if wrong. The answers are wiki-like, and that makes the content better. You may not like it, but why would StackOverflow change their system to make the content work to please a tiny minority of their community? It's a bad idea that would make the site worse.