Here is an tutorial from Maxim describing hot-swap circuits, and the advantages of dedicated hot-swap ICs over discrete component circuits. Hot-swaps are designed to protect the rest of the circuitry when power is applied. Inrush current limiting, circuit breaking, over and under voltage protection, etc..
This application note discusses hot-swap ICs. Typical hot-swap circuits are described and the advantages of different hot-swap circuits are explained.
Thank you for the ap note. I built this and it works great. My load circuit is approximately 1.2A and has 3 DC-DC converters on the front end. Input capacitance is 30uF @57V. I used a Si2337DS P-channel MOSFET and a MMBT3906 bipolar transistor to keep it small, both parts are SOT23 packages.