(b) is something that needs to be taught in media literacy courses: for any controversial subject, always read the talk page as well as the article. Easier said than done when there are 300+ pages of archives, but there are often FAQs present to cover the biggest issues, and at any rate, who said understanding controversial topics would be easy?
But for controversial battleground subjects, I think (e) is actually not so common, because the opposing sides of edit wars do actually ruthlessly check each others’ sources, looking for any excuse to disqualify them.
Make sure to check the talk page history for large deletions. Sometimes editor disputes get swept under the rug by somebody pruning the discussion page later.
If everyone read the talk page, then edit battles would happen on the talk page itself, with people removing comments that 'weren't in the right spirit'.
This totally already happens. Well, it does for off-topic trash and personal attacks. If you go in with suggestions for improving the article (even misguided ones), your comment won’t get deleted.
But for controversial battleground subjects, I think (e) is actually not so common, because the opposing sides of edit wars do actually ruthlessly check each others’ sources, looking for any excuse to disqualify them.