Thanks for the preference tip, its a bit easier now to follow the commit to the author, but I still find it difficult to grasp at a glance where is my first commit (down on the list) because my brain is looking for my name, not those of my coleagues. As it currently is the cognitive load is: 1) spot a blank, 2) look up to see if the topmost name is mine, 3) look down again to see where the blank begun.

Yes please. I use the log at the end of the day in order to recall when I was working on the project so I can log hours in our issue tracker, and it's very difficult to spot my commits.

Yes, I'm aware of the 'Select from log...'. It is, as you say, just a matter of a handy hotkey. The dialog opens with the cursor on the textarea ready to type so you already have your hands on the keyboard, press up and start editing :)