> but it's still often hard to understand which side of the conflict represents what, and what would be the desired outcome for that step in the history.

Are you using diff3/zdiff3? I ask because you seem to be describing exactly the problem it solves, or at least the way I try to sell people on it.

Basically in addition to 'current' & 'incoming from the rebase' hunks you get 'parent commit of incoming from the rebase' – which allows you to see 'what was I trying to change', i.e. how does the intent of it apply to the different thing that's now on master (whatever I'm reading onto).