My experience is that, in heavy traffic, only one person would get to go, maybe two.
Right. So wait you turn. And tell the relevant elected official that there's regular heavy traffic at that intersection and it needs an arrow for left turns.
I prefer actually getting to where I'm going and, from what I've seen, a lot of other people prefer that too.
(a) turn left the split-second the light turns green in front of oncoming traffic still coming off the line
I've never seen A occur around here before (2-second all-reds make it hard to do)
I'm not sure if you're understanding me correctly or not.
1. You're waiting to turn left.
2. The light turns red, but only the car in front of you has time to turn left.
3. You're now at the front of the line in the left-turn lane (if there is one).
4. Cross-traffic gets the green and does their thing.
5. Cross-traffic gets a red light.
6. A few stragglers finish up
their turns during the all-red phase.
7. Your light and that for oncoming traffic gets the green.
8. While oncoming traffic is still getting in gear, you
immediately turn left in front of them.
The duration of the all-red phase doesn't really have much effect on one's ability to do this sort of thing.