I just finished reading a lengthy thread on the Raspberry Pi forum:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=19554It has a lot of information on the actual implementation of different commands between Linux and the SD card or SSD. It's good information, but I'm left a little confused as to what is actually implemented in the standard Raspi Debian release and how to properly set things up. The consensus is that either SD is very robust, or it is very prone to corruption. Very little in-between. I think the best approach is to limit the number of needless write cycles where ever possible. So, I'll continue to press the author to see what can be done.
With as many "experts" as were posting in that thread, I guess I'm unclear on why there isn't a consensus!