This post nicely lays out the options current users of mercurial have: http://stevelosh.com/blog/entry/2009/8/30/a-guide-to-branchi...
I commonly use all of bookmarks, named branches, and anonymous branches to do in-place switching of my filesystem depending on what I'm working on.
I also gave a presentation on Mercurial last month that goes into much more detail on mercurial pros/cons: http://www.slideshare.net/tednaleid/mercurial-dvcs-presentat...
And it was not weak at any time in the past, actually.
And it was not weak at any time in the past, actually.