I don't know all of the regex rules (look ahead/behind, etc); but it's honestly not that bad. If you can learn the syntax for a programming language, you can learn the basics of regex..
Sure, learning basics of regex is not that hard, but complex regex expressions can easily become impenetrable. I actually like the verbal expressions idea where you write out the regex using a long form and that gets compiled into the actual regex, e.g:
My brief experience with LINQ has also taught me to prefer this type of thing as well; though I still use regex on a daily basis most of the time, given my environment.