I didn't know about @:, thanks!
It's a very handy thing, though in earlier versions of vim if you
had a literal control+M in the last command-line (as entered with
a control+V followed by control+M), it would truncate the
command-line at that point rather than re-issue that last
command-line. Other control-characters also caused similar problems.
There was also a second bug regarding commands that operate over
a range. If you visually select a new range and use @: it would
make the resulting command
:'<,'>'<,'>command
which would choke vim.
There are workarounds for these older versions (if you need 'em,
let me know and I'll elaborate).
However, since they have been fixed (I'm not sure whether it was
in a late v6.x or only v7), it's an even more regular staple of
my vim usage. However, it's just something to watch for if you
use older versions of vim (such as what I have on some of my
hosting providers that I can't easily upgrade myself).
-tim
