Edit button looks enabled even when editing is prevented

Question

I just commented a question, stating I would edit it, then realized I will not, since my account was banned from doing so.

There are of course several ways this could have been avoided, including notifying me of the ban. But if we take these other issues as granted, one simple solution would have been to make the interface represent the situation. Unfortunately, although the interface has technically accounted for that for more than a decade, the Edit button was intentionally re-added, just so that contributors can figure out why they are prevented from editing.

When "disabled", the Edit button is "greyed out", but then, it always is (its enabled color is either rgb(12, 13, 14) or rgb(99, 107, 116) (don't ask me how it chooses), and when disabled, it stays/becomes rgb(99, 107, 116)). This makes these 4 characters in a 13 pixels font the same color as those in neighbor buttons, which are enabled (although again, these neighbors―at least Share―can sometimes be rgb(12, 13, 14)―again, don't ask me why that ever varies)! And that is the only difference, so to put it simply, there is no way that an unsuspecting reader would notice the difference; the interface is (at least effectively) non-contextual.

Impact

There is the frustration of sending a comment and having to amend myself, but there is also the frustration of having planned an edit for nothing. I only start actual editing when I have a good plan of what I will change, because:

1. There are requirements for edits to be "not too minor" (including at least 6 characters of difference).
2. Editing is not WYSIWYG.
3. It's safer to have read the entire post before editing.

And then there is the frustration of experiencing that issue for an umpteenth time; while the scenario I described may be particularly frustrating, there are 10 cases which can cause such deception (including most notably the infamous "There are too many pending edits on Stack Overflow. Please try again later." and editing on Meta sites).

So, it may not be a lot of time wasted each time (from a few seconds to a few minutes), but multiply that by hundreds/thousands of times every day, and I would guess this alone is wasting something in the order of magnitude of 1 full-time contributor. And causing recurrent frustration.

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Solutions

While making editing WYSIWYG would be great/best, simply presenting the answer differently would solve very easily. Ideally, you would notice a difference not only at the bottom of the post, but even just replacing the "Edit" button with something proper would be very satisfying. Striking it could be a start, but it would much better to:

1. Change the label to something like "Editing not allowed".
2. Display it in a different (not just in saturation) color.
3. Add an icon like "⛔", ideally replacing a different icon (say "✎") in a different color when editing is allowed.
4. Or other possibilities (orange background, etc)

• Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog: Many years ago, the edit button used to be grayed out if the user couldn't edit a post, but this was changed back in ~2017 supposedly to make it consistent with other UI elements. (It was announced by an edit to the recent feature changes post.)