How to expose edit link on editable areas for all authorized users? The ideas is that in Drupal 7, on mouse hover on a node (or block) a edit link  appear at top corner of the node (or block), just like  the cog that appears for admin when s/he hovers on editable areas. 

By exposing the the edit link on hover, we can create a much better user experience, for users that are not necessarily familiar with Drupal backend. I appreciate your hints.
There are two ways to do this.

The "gears" feature is from the "Use contextual links" permission on admin/people/permissions.  If you give that to the appropriate roles, your users should see that.

Personally, I don't like the Contextual Links feature, mainly because the markup it adds can mess with theme layout when you have other positioning going on. I typically add in my own edit links to pages, usually below the content somewhere. I will sometimes use a display: none on them, and then have a link in the footer menu that shows them all via jQuery.