Patrick Burns' R inferno[1] enumerates a lot of R's eccentricities and workarounds for them. I think R gets a lot better once you switch to using the libraries Hadley maintains like plyr and ggplot. I still think proficiency in R is akin to a type of Stockholm syndrome.

[1] : http://www.burns-stat.com/pages/Tutor/R_inferno.pdf [PDF]