2.2 Is there a way to use FINFO to let me know a file is being accessed by another process?
Sure, try
:if finfo('myfile',61) > 0 then
or, for better readability,
:if finfo('myfile','accessors') > 0 then
or even
:if finfo('myfile','num accessors') > 0 then
:HELP FINFO will display a list of available options including both the numeric option code and alphanumeric alias. Unfortunately, the HELP text sometimes lags behind the implementation of various options. Therefore, it is always a good idea to have recent Communicators available. New CI options are almost always documented in the Communicators.