Yes, almost any other VCS would fare better. VSS was set up so that clients could write files directly into the repository -- if the client failed for whatever reason, the repository file could get corrupted.
The bad memories are coming back. IIRC you would mount a network drive containing the VSS files. One company I worked for had a virus which infected the repository and I don't think it was ever completely cleaned out.
And salvaging a corrupted repository was a pain because SourceSafe stored your files in a munged format spread across dozens of files named aaaaaaaa, aaaaaaab, aaaaaaac, and so on. :(