AFAIK the default use case is to only track merge info on the top level directory, as long as you only do branch/merge operations on the top level. By not doing

AFAIK the default use case is to only track merge info on the top level directory, as long as you only do branch/merge operations on the top level. By not doing that, yes, you can shoot yourself in the foot. But it's not necessary at all. Maybe we're talking about different versions, though. I used to use SVN 1.6+ IIRC.