Just to be clear, this isn't my proposal: it's from Lennart and Neil.
The ghc warning for importing Data.List should be as helpful as possible, something like:
Foo:5:1 Warning: Data.List imported unqualified, this will conflict with BBP.
Instead use 'import Data.List(maximumBy, sortBy)'
Upon reflection, I am prepared to seriously consider this approach.
It should be noted that while I was there with Lennart when we talked about the problems, my viewpoints and Lennart's are not identical. I think the decision was insufficiently communicated (as seems to be universally agreed), I think it's probably a bad idea to ever make this change (I may well be in the minority here), and that the change was done in the wrong way (see http://neilmitchell.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/how-to-rewrite-prelude.html for how I think it should have been approached). However, I'm not a fan of importing List qualified (I find that deeply ugly), and a warning that I can't disable compatibly in older version of GHC without CPP is pretty annoying - the GHC warning checker will then be dictating personal style, and (in my very personal opinion) be in the wrong. I raised this issue in October, I fought my corner through blog posts and reddit, and I lost - I considered that the end. The Core libraries committee have done the work, and at this stage, to back out will be a fantastic amount of work. I don't have the time to put in that amount of work, and I think it unfair to demand those who are for BBP to do the work for me. At the same time, I have more than once picked the "easy option" in the short term when coding, been warned by Lennart that I was making a mistake, and then discovered down the line that Lennart was right. Making mistakes with Prelude is going to be costly. Thanks, Neil