Upvoted for the good info here, but this is not direction I was going in.
Too many parts of the system are easy to mess up as root, doing work as an unprivileged user and escalating when necessary gives you time to think about what you are about to do.
Personally, I treat sudo like a loaded gun, and I make damn sure i know what it's pointed at when I pull the trigger.
When logged in as root every command becomes a loaded gun.
EDIT: Also in a tailspin there is sudo su to save you extra keystrokes, but emergencies are the exception not the rule.
RE: FIVE minutes to a safer Ubuntu experience for noobs AND pros.