Liberty> ... before doing a 'cvs commit' is to do
  Liberty> 'cvs update'

Yes, I always do that.

  Liberty> Even though I try to follow some basic steps
  Liberty> before doing a cvs commit, i too realize
  Liberty> that I've just screwed up ...

That's the problem. Mistakes happen. All men are bozos
from time to time.

  Liberty> at my vim editor and the list of files cvs
  Liberty> is about to commit. I use the ':q!' command
  Liberty> from within vim, and cvs gives me a prompt
  Liberty> asking if i which to abort, commit with
  Liberty> empty log message, or continue. By choosing
  Liberty> abort, I safely avoid the commit process.

That's exactly the answer I was looking for! I didn't
realize CVS was smart enough to be triggered by an
empty log. I'll pass that information on to my
colleagues.

  Liberty> You may get different results depending on
  Liberty> your cvs client version and your version of
  Liberty> vim. ...

The CVS is the latest (I installed it from source), and
it's generic vi, not vim. (Older BSD/OS system.) I have
every reason to believe it will work as you describe.

Thanks very much.

-- 
Lynn David Newton
Phoenix, AZ