IMO, equal shares and consensus decision making go a long way in avoidance of a whole host of potentially fatal startup conflicts. And having a policy to openly discuss everything, which goes hand in hand with consensus decision making, creates a healthy forum to resolve conflicts before they blow up into unresolvable or annoying-to-resolve situations.
I agree with the transparency part, but I don't think the the "equal shares" concept is necessarily sound. It assumes that all founders are contributing equally which is not always the case.
What you are looking to do is make things equitable -- not equal.
The reason I left my previous start-up, the "camel-back-breaking" factor, was a lack of transparency among co-founders. I think a policy of intra-company transparency, or a policy to openly discuss everything, as you put it, is instrumental to avoiding co-founder problems.
