Yes, the merged ESP will then be in the Bashed Patch. You can then deactivate the original. Yep, improting helps to solve conflicts. The best way to tell if there a conflict with two or more plugins is to load them in TES4Edit. You can then solve most conflicts manually, or let Bash solve some of then auto-magically. Bash will not solve all conflicts though. For example if there are 2 mods that add a script to the same NPC, and both mods have the "import scripts" bash tag, the later loading mod will "win" out, and that script is the one that will be imported into the Bashed Patch. That's when manual tweaking is required to get the best of both mods in that case.