+1 for sudo.
I've been using linux since Slackware 1.2, currently been using Gentoo for 5+ years, and truthfully, I edit /etc/shadow and add a character to the hash for my root's password, effectively disabling logon by any source. I use my user account and sudo exclusively. If there's a time that I'll be doing a large amount of commands as root, I simply 'sudo bash' and now I have a privileged command prompt. An underused and under recommended command is sudoedit. In this way you can edit a file with privileges, but in a controlled manner. The additional benefit of sudo is that you can configure it to allow various commands without prompting for a password, and it logs any access or commands run with privileges.