Brad was referring not to Conflict, but to Intraprovince movement. IIRC, they were trying to do it one province at a time which probably close to doubles the length of time required for the game as a whole. I think it would work fine if instead, it was dealt with faction at a time as much as possible. Quite often, one faction has only majorities to deal with in most of the provinces they are present in. They go first and take care of all of the provinces that they can. The next faction that can do a bulk of their movements would then go and so on. By the end, in a full 5-player game, there should likely be at most 2 move files per faction to resolve the entire phase. If you don't use an efficient method here, it will likely cause the dragging that collapsed earlier attempts.

I've played a complete game of Revolution PBeM in about 4 months. It was a 2-player game, which helps a little bit, but even a full game shouldn't take more than 6-8 months. The Cyberboard could be used if needed, but the game can be tracked in a spreadsheet to speed play. Rather than having everyone have to create move files for every little thing, it might go quicker to use a spreadsheet to track it and post actions for others to follow along (either with a real board, Cyberboard, or spreadsheet as well). Updated screenshots at significant points would keep everyone on the same page too.

If you play it PBeM, I encourage you to use Brad's Yahoo! group so that others can follow along.