I get the problem, but I think that solution will lead to intimidating users. 5 items in the toolbar is nice.. put the page in edit mode, there's already too much stuff to understand at a glance.. I'll routinely hear from people saying "how do i move a page"... well duh, read the buttons.. so adding more and providing custom labels to em seems like a step backwards..

what i do think we need to do a better job of is letting owners customize the template that is being used for this specific page. I know as a site builder, that doesn't excite me at all, but I'm used to working on a very particular type of branding focused project. For a smaller site, being able to dink around with colors would be wise..

Today you could already go into "design" and choose a unique theme for just the page you're on. We're dancing with ideas around letting people tweak css styles that have been set as configurable by the developers. So that might help...

I'm not sure this solves your problem or not...

Another thought, when you add content via default content in the dashboard, if someone with editing privs edits that block on a page it's been placed on, c5 will make a new instance of that block that isn't shared across all pages so you might have a custom footer right here instead of what was made with default content..

If you're saying "yeah i knew that, but i want to be able to change text across the whole site from a specific page when the mood strikes me".. I'd argue, "no". I think the editing toolbar is all about doing stuff to THIS page.. the dashboard is all about making site wide changes... thats a clear distinction, and it makes a lot of sense to keep it..

now do we need to make the dashboard even more accessible and user friendly? probably.