At the moment there is a competition for being the first answer because the first answer tends to earn the most votes. As a consequence some people tend to only skim the question or even only half of it before they start writing an "answer". Again as a consequence, the overall quality of answers drops since once a question has an "answer" it ends up getting less views reducing the chance of getting an accurate and to the point answer.
I have been thinking about this for more than a year and yesterday I think a possible solution to the dilemma occurred to me which I hereby would like to propose:
How about we introduce a 30 minute threshold of time after a question has been posted during which the thread is editable but posted answers will not appear? It means you can write your answer, post it and edit it but no one will see it until 30 minutes are up.
As a consequence I think the competing for "time" would shift to being a competition for "accuracy and quality".
Addendum: If anyone else has any suggestions on how to cut down on suboptimal answers please contribute. I think it is a big problem. Answering should not be a race for time but a strive for quality and excellence.