Your point isn't entirely invalid, but I lose HDDs a hell of a lot more often than I encounter any of the other problems you mention. I don't think I've seen a power supply pop since 2006, I've never lost UPS/surge-protected gear to a mains spike, every server room or datacenter I've cared about has been environmentally monitored, heptafluoropropane exists for a reason, and why are you building a datacenter on a floodplain?
In contrast, I lose 5-10% of the spinning HDDs I care about every year.
why are you building a datacenter on a floodplain?
Every spot in our solar system is susceptible to some unrecoverable disaster. If you don't want to lose your data, you have to have copies in more than one physical location.
Seriously, I didn't say he was wrong in theory, but focusing so much attention on the highly unlikely to the detriment of the exceedingly common is a drastic distortion of the issue, and a cost/benefit analysis skewed in either direction can have costly repercussions.
No, I've not dealt with enough of them for long enough to have anything meaningful to say on the subject. So far I've not even had one clearly die (though there have been some very odd transient incidents.)
Jeff Atwood made an interesting post on that very subject a while back, though:
Think bad power supply, mains spike, cooling failure, fire, flood .....
If you need raid, you also need a separate copy in a separate location.