My favorite intro to R book is The Art of R Programming by Norman Matloff http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Programming-Statistical-Softwa...

I've been working with R 90% of my time over the last two years and I agree it's a freakishly inconsistent language.

Me and the team I work with are still finding out weird completely illogical errors that effect the language but I think I've somehow started loving it despite all it's flaws and I did actually semi-enjoy the process of figuring out all those little wtf issues.

For those starting out with it reading this book + r inferno helps a lot with understanding the underlying weirdness and inconstancies of the language: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Art-Programming-Statistical-Soft...