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This is really cool. If you're using Ubuntu or Debian as your base OS then you really should be managing your software with something like this and offloading your deployment to it as well. The benefits of a setup like that are dead-simple rollbacks and deployment scripts.

I think you fear learning something new more than anything else and calling yourself a C simpleton doesn't really help your argument. Like I said in another comment when assemblers were being developed the same exact arguments were thrown around so if history is a guide then these tools are the future and the sooner you learn them the better position you'll be in.

Proofs are not just about knowing whether something is true or not. Any good proof will reveal techniques that can be applied in other situations even when the assumptions don't quite hold. If you think those techniques might be applicable to your work then you should study the proof. No one else can make this distinction other than you.

The argument can be adapted almost verbatim for hacker type vs theory type programmers. One is in the problem solver camp the other in the fundamental understanding and theory building camp. Silicon Valley is dominated by hackers and they are constantly re-inventing wheels because of lack of theoretical understanding, e.g. NoSQL, and the theory builders are working on problems that will almost surely collect dust in some dark corner of a university library.