Ouch :) I think that linear workflow and gamma correction is one of the easiest thing to understand, but hardest to explain :)
A modo user made two very nice videos he posted on youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEbH62a1YqA ).
His explanations aren't complete but he actually does a great job at explaining why and how.

If you are curious to know why I make such a fuss about this, create a simple sphere, a quadratic light, and render make two renders, one without gamma correction, and one set to 1.8 or 2.2 (it really depends on the physical characteristics of your monitor, much, much more than the traditional distinction between mac and PC). Despite the fact that traditionally PC are supposed to be 2.2, in my experience most pretty high quality LCD monitor will work "better" with a gamma of 1.8 (I use a hardware calibrator, and I did try both gamma). No matter what gamma you choose to use, it's also generally a good idea to keep the "bitmap input gamma" value to 2.2 since it's the most extensively used (sRGB), for the output, I like to use 1 and save as EXR or float Tiff (float 16 bit) to be able to adjust in post.

I know my explanation are probably much more confusing than helpful, but I'm pretty sure if you play a bit with the values, you will see how much it improve the realism produced :)