Is it possible to put existing/shared Content type fields as Feature code each in their own individual file to simplify/avoid git merge conflicts?
We faced similar problems, what we did was, we created a 4 features of similar fields that were used in multiple content types. This made sure that if a person is working on a similar funtionaltiy, he is responsible for all the content types.
Yes, we still need to be careful for this, but dividing it into multiple features did solve many issues.