I have had so much problems with position: relative (especially regarding any divs that come after it) that I'm starting to think an overall rule is to keep with static and use margin to move things around when at all possible and use relative when you need it for negative placements, etc.
I was working on a messed up page today where the divs were overlapping and covering each other. I switched all the relatively position divs to static and reimplemented the shifts using margins and now it looks great.
Am I off base?