Is there an advantage of branching in version-controlled paper writing? I use a version control system (formerly subversion, now git) to write papers, which for me works very well and is convenient. A few times, I even worked with branches for different logical versions of a paper, such as versions submitted to different journals. However, I found branching of little use for paper writing. When I used different branches for different journal submissions, I found myself working only on the "latest" branch anyway, since I can anyway only submit one version per time, and, if it is rejected, will not continue to work on that particular version at a later time. I didn't find any other good use of branching in paper writing, and later skipped it completely.

Is there any advantage of working with several branches when writing a paper with a version control system? How should one organize the writing process in order to profit from such an advantage?
I use HG, but it is essentially the same as GIT, in that branching is easy. I branch all the time when working with coauthors. The branches tend to be short lived and merged pretty quickly. Basically, I distribute a copy to my coauthors and each set of comments I get back form different branches. This lets me see each authors comments individually. I then work on merging the comments back into the main trunk. Sometimes the merge is easy and the branch is one commit long. Other times it might take longer if I need to work out something (e.g., math, model, or analysis) which might require a couple of revisions before it is ready to go into the main trunk.