A great trick I didn't know about was the 0 register. I've lost tracked of the number of times I've copied some text, and then deleted something by mistake not realizing I'd overwritten the default register. I could still have pasted what I wanted with "0p, though.
I didn't know about that trick either. I've been using YankRing (http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1234) which would get me around the same problem. Basically, you hit p to paste, and if it's not what you want, you keep hitting C-p (control+p) and it will move backwards through time and keep pasting. Once you paste what you want, you're done! Awesome plugin that I can't live without.
