"But what kind of editing are you trying to do on the face directly?"

I'm trying to edit the curve that was extruded into a solid. And I'd like to do this without
Edit > Separate
move the curve somewhere
edit the curve
re-extrude the curve
delete the old extrusion
move the re-extrusion into place

It's similar to the typical "edit group" functionality: If you double-click on an extruded solid, the solid is grayed-out and you see the curve, with control points which you can edit. When you click "Done", the solid is re-generated.

I got used to this in VectorWorks, very convenient and quick! :-)

Thanks for asking.
Christopher