> Patches can be applied to a conflicting repository, leaving the conflict resolution for later. (from the docs)

but you still have to resolve the conflicts at some point, right? and it doesn't say how this is done. so it isn't clear if this approach is less painful in practice when you apply a bunch of patches.

I haven't used pijul, but I'm familiar with darcs and manually resolving the conflict with a new patch. You still have the conflicting patches, which you can manipulate. There's no claim of magic resolution, and I don't see why having it in the model is a negative.