I don't think I agree with your point. Javascript is a very small language, and while there are a number of gotchas they are enumerable and well-defined.

Central concepts:

- Objects

- Prototypes

- Scope chains

- Closures

- Function.bind, Function.apply/Function.call

Gotchas:

- Behavior of the "new" operator

- Value of "this"

- Type coercion, falsiness of "", == vs. ===

- var hoisting

- if/for/while do not create scope

- function expression vs. function declaration

Many of the gotchas are self-evident if you learn the central concepts.