For conflict freedom to occur (and I think its an interesting and useful objective) bitcoin perhaps needs to be simplified and frozen, maybe moved to a formally provable specification rather than code as definition.  Soft-forks could be prevented by consensus rule if we were convinced of perfect correctness.  

Hard-forks are harder to foist on people because they require a near absolute majority whereas soft-forks are a bit more miner influenceable.

If we had an extension mechanism that doesnt touch core once setup, the core becomes that bit closer to freezable & formal specifiable refactor becoming possible.  If we have the possibility for live-betas we are more likely to be able to get to formal specification as definition.  (Thats a hard-fork for sure).

Another aspect of conflict freedom (other than freezing and forcing change to be hard-fork) is to enable permissionless innovation - then there's no conflict, people who want to try things can go try them without lobbying for changes to bitcoin.  Also good.

Adam