Shelties

Short answer: Yes. LOL.

Long answer: IMHO the prevalence of timidity in the breed began with BYB getting ahold of the breed and their temperaments going to hell, and then people (Joe Public as well as newbie breeders) began to think that this sort of temperament was normal in the breed... that it was acceptable... and they allowed it into their breeding program. I think some people also completely misunderstand the standard - they read "reserved with strangers" and think that means "does not want to go anywhere near a stranger" is okay. The standard actually says flat out that shyness and timidity is a FAULT in the breed, but some people just don't make it that far in reading the standard. ;P
So it is a problem in the breed, but it is not normal for the breed and if you do your research and find somebody who knows what they are doing and you have met their dogs, you most likely will NOT have a problem with an overly shy dog. That said, even with a good breeder, sometimes stuff happens and a dog goes a bit off (see: Pepper) - but I think that goes for a lot of breeds. I have heard of it with border collies too... dogs that are very sensitive, soft to corrections, shy, nervous and flighty. I sorta think the herding dog nature sometimes lends itself to things being a bit easy to get out of hand... there is a thread here from maybe a few years back where we were talking about the common misconceptions with border collies and problems in the breed and I felt like it was very similar to the way people perceive shelties. Some of that also goes back to how much is nature and how much is nurture, besides the fact that with genes, you are playing a bit of a crapshoot anyway.

I think most herding breeds can be like this, so I agree with Beanie. I know more timid/shy herding type breeds than any other type. I heard one BC person say that herding dogs tend to straddle so many extremes in temperament and drives that when something goes 'off' it tends to go really off. That's been my experience. Our Collie mix we had was very similar to Trey in that he was pretty inept. You get part of that brain and drive but not the rest and you can end up with a very spacey dog.

My shy sheltie was ironically the only decently bred one I'd had. He was painfully timid. They should be a bit aloof and wary but I think it's just easy for them to go too far to the extreme. My BYB dogs were very confident and well rounded. Now I am NOT saying that BYB dogs are going to be good and well bred dogs bad, just pointing out it's not always a breeding thing. Trey's relatives were completely normal, but he was just really strange. Sometimes you just get a weird dog from a good breeding.

Yeah that. The shedding isn't that bad. It's certainly more than you'd need for a single coat like a papillon but I don't think it'd be any harder than any other double coated, longhaired breed. I would be lying if I said we brushed ours weekly, but I would say weekly or bi-weekly would be ideal.