No, David was kinda right. Dropbox has built-in version tracking. Only 30days of history is saved by default. Of course there are no commit messages, but it happens any time the file is changed, and the web ui presents it in a pretty clear way for non-techy users, by timestamp and author.

I think the specific version-hell he perceives is the where any member of the team does not have the latest version. So in his case it is the auto sync that scratches that itch, and not the explicit version tracking.

As for the "editor's initials" part. I think you might have misunderstood what he meant. The editor did not make another copy with a new name, she just renamed the file, as a signal to the team that her work was complete. Alternatively she could have just communicated by some other means, and left the filename in tact, but this is what they chose.

they sell a "packrat" feature with paid subscriptions for unlimited version history