Ugh yes, my last layer save was a disaster recovery. I accidentally merged a shadow layer with my line art and nearly lost a whole evening's work. Thank god for that undo history.
Doubt it's a crisis every time. Sometimes you just need to save the whole file more often, not make a whole new version. @juliap64's situation with the shadow layer is a good example of when you really need it, but for small edits? Seems like overkill. I've fixed most of my oops moments just by going back to my last regular save. Making a layer version for every little change would just clutter my files.
Remember that portrait I did for my friend's wedding gift? I made so many tiny changes to the background shading. At first I just saved the file often, but I messed up the blending and my undo history wasn't enough. That's when I started making layer versions before any shading work, and it saved me from redoing hours of progress. Now I do it for any edit that feels risky, even small ones, because a small change can spiral out of control fast. The clutter in my files is a fair trade for avoiding that panic.