I've only been using the Arduino board for a few days now, but I feel like its missing a power switch. I always get very nervous about plugging wires into a micro and find myself unplugging the usb cable every time need to make a hardware change.
Is this the wrong approach to working with the Arduino?
find myself unplugging the usb cable every time need to make a hardware change.
That's what you are supposed to do. The best way of blowing up your board is to work on it while it is powered up. If you want a switch then power it from an external PSU and switch that.