This idea has been merged into another idea. To comment or vote on this idea, please visit PL-I-271 PIM UX: navigation, base product vs variant, search.
Today when you edit a product you land on one of its variants. Then you have to select the base product in the drop-down menu.
It would be nice if you instead land directly on the base product. Since there is a variant tab, that should be the way to edit variants.