Re: Bottoms Up
Yes, I think that a lot of the problems people have with Git is that a lot of the documentation-- including some of Git's own-- tries to view Git through the "lens" of other version control systems, and this only ends up making you more confused. When I read "Git From The Bottom Up", I was like, "that's how it works?! Alrighty then!" Of course, people will show off and do scary stuff with git rebase because they can but I'm pretty sure those people will find other ways to balls things up even without tools like Git.
The one thing I would say about Git is that it's never lost data on me. It's tied itself in knots trying to convince me it's gone, data, dunno what you're talking about, mate, but if you hold it down and threaten to torture its nipples (using the poorly documented git torture-nipples command), it's usually more forthcoming...