Editing -- Stage 5

Editing, Stage 1: write a novel for the pure love of it and don't think about anything. Editing, Stage 2: have someone friendly read it and give you happy, rainbow, pony feedback. Editing, Stage 3: take a class on writing and have it critiqued there -- for real. Editing, Stage 4: join a writing group and have it critiqued over and over and make serious, deadly changes each edit. Editing, Stage 5: have stages 1 through 4 in mind while writing the next book. My seventh novel was 200,000 words, had two separate narrating voices, a political-criminal plot with a quasi-religious backdrop and a grandfather who dies. It was written in Stage 1. After Stage 4 it became 70,000 words (probably only 30,000 of the original), had ONE narrator and had no political-criminal plot or dying grandfather. I kept the quasi-religious backdrop, though. I am now "editing" my 14th novel (the second civil war one previously mentioned on this blog) and find that in writing it I had already done much of the misery editing. Now editing is a bit easier (if a little less fun -- no deleting 50 pages and re-writing it into 5 pages) and strangely engaging. I do not mean to sound high and mighty (I am well acquainted with the earth), but I don't want to put my book down. I want to know what happens next! Question: should you edit your novel as you write it? Question: is there a stage 6?