Hooovahh, thanks for the response.
When you say "I just suggest Tortoise SVN" by that do you mean tortoiseSVN versus other client side options or are you saying do not use the TSVN Toolkit from viewpoint (http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/211524)?
While merge is the ideal, we would likely use the lock/commit scheme, but a concern is, Dev. A is working on a control or enum that cascades down to multiple VIs will that developer need to lock out all of those VIs from Dev. B? It seems like the best way to avoid lockout issues is with branches but my concern is how well these branches can be committed back to the main trunk for deployment, particularly for Labview.
Again, thanks for the response, a lot of good information and advice.
-MrShawn