Thanks for the review, Halfjack!
And I'm there with you on the stress thing. We've got some ideas for alternatives that have been talked about on the forums, and we'll be tightening it up (and changing it to make it harder-hitting) in the Dresden Files RPG. I think in our efforts to make PCs larger-than-life heroes who could really take anything and keep on going, we made lots of things a little too resilient. Luckily the fixes are easy.
http://evilhat.wikidot.com/faster-conflicts