Personally, I would find it more useful to sit around and watch paint peel off my wall. But then again, I didn't write a book about why open source projects should have 100-message-long votes on every line of code to be added to the project... so I clearly don't "get it".
For most of us, no. For the SVN team, other forces are at work - I'd say familiarity of the code and desire for their baby to stay relevant are big ones.
It has to be sold to me (or your typical departmental svn user). I do spend time learning new tools, but that time is limited, so I'm less likely to spend it on something that has the potential drawbacks that I raised.
FWIW, yes, I am trying out git on the side. That use of time looks worthwhile.