While editing a post/page, that item is locked to the current user. How can something similar be accomplished with the settings pages?
Take this for example. admin A is changing settings for a plugin, admin B tries to do the same. OK, this is plugin specific and can be solved by adding a flag to the database/options. But, what if admin A is changing settings for a plugin, and admin B deletes/disables the plugin? Depending on how the plugin was coded, a whole variety of things could go wrong.