The other difference is that common law cares for the written intent, while under civil law judges should seek the underlying intent - which can be opposite to what is written down.
One recurring examples I've seen in German law training (but IANAL): two parties agree on the sale of a certain type of fish but use the wrong (Norwegian?) word in the contract. What fish is this contract about? Correct answer: What they meant, not what they wrote down.
This might (or might not) be different in common law - but obviously still isn't an issue unless one party brings the contract in front of a judge.
As for articles about legal cases: Highly popular cases typically make more sense when you dig into the details (eg. reading the actual decision, not just what some journalist misunderstood the court's abstract to be about). Sometimes they remain puzzling - but I fear that's a feature of all legal systems.
And then there's the additional complication that patent cases seem to run under ever-so-slightly different rules to ordinary civil cases, no matter where.
Europe has a stronger copyright which has actually proven a bit more sane than our software patent woes; both granting more protection than copyright but less than an algorithm patent.
