The good news is the version ranges do actually work.

The problem I described related to JBossAS doesn't exist if you use ranges.
i.e.
common-core has 1.0.1 and 1.0.2
jboss-aop 1.0.1 uses common-core 1.0.1
microcontainer 1.0.1 uses common-core 1.0.2
jboss-deployers 1.0.1 uses microcontainer 1.0.1
jbossas uses jboss-aop 1.0.1 and jboss-deployers 1.0.1

With only suggestions the older common-core 1.0.1 gets used
because jboss-aop's dependency is closer to the root of jbossas.

With the constraints i.e. replace 1.0.2 with

[1.0.2,)

for the microcontainer then jbossas uses 1.0.2 as required.

Similarly if jboss-aop specified

[1.0.1]

then no valid constraint is available to satisfy both aop and the mc
Maven fails the build as expected.