I'm ok with changing my workflow if that'd give better history. But someone would need to explain the new workflow carefully on the wiki. At the moment my general plan is:

* make some changes
* commit as patches
* validate
* pull
* fix conflicts
* revalidate if the conflicts look at all suspicious
* push

It ought to be the same, with pull replaced with pull --rebase. That being said it's late here and I haven't thought it over carefully. I suggest you try it on a small change first. :)