Creating reports: Where to start ?

I'm not familiar with reporting and sql databases, but would like to create some simple (trend) reports for our work item tracking system.
I browsed to the MSDN help, saw some video's, took a Virtual Lab on Report Builder, spent almost 2 days to get Report Builder working (had to reinstall .Net 2.0 to get it working), opened some sample reports from the TFS Sample report zip packages, tried to create some reports in Report Builder (forum advises no to use this; thread;http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=766354&SiteID=1) and tried to create some reports in Report Designer.
It seems to me that you have to be an SQL,MDX,RDL,VB and god may know what else guru to be able to produce some simple status reports.
For example, we have defined several Team Queries to quickly find the workitems assigned to different teams (QA-ToDo, RND-ToDo, RnD-Ready, etc). Now we would like to see some trend reports that show the these counts over time.
As far as I can see I have to redefine this queries all over again in my report definition because the language used is different.

when you say you have to redefine your queries, what platform are these queries written in?

I think anyone who will be using reporting services (or most report writers) will at least have to eventually have an understanding of the SQL language. The nice thing about learning SQL is it you can generally apply what you know in SQL Server (T-SQL) to other database platforms like oracle, MySQL, etc...

Learning the vb syntax for inline expressions justs extends the capabilities of RS but isn't required for basic reports, and there are really only a hand full that you will use with any frequenecy (such as the IIF statement).

It isn't really required to know about RDL's (it's just xml). If you understand the basics of xml the RDL (go into code view of a report) makes perfect sense. Learning the basics about xml is very easy, and understanding this will make the RDL code make more sense.

All-in-all these are all technologies you should have a fundemental understanding of anyway if you are going to be writing reports. For starters, you'll have to do some research and reading:

XML (to help understand what an RDL is):

http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp

here is one on sql:

http://www.w3schools.com/sql/

I think if you are going to delve into report writing, you'll will need to become familiar with these technologies, particulaly SQL. RS does have a query designer to make it easier, but in time you should learn how to also write it out.