true, while not all indications of bad blocks will mean it will get worse, it does fairly often. And how much do you trust a drive that has already shown signs of a problem?

I guess with an iPod it isn't as much of an issue, since the computer is the backup for the iPod.

With a computer, I replace the drive every time, if they want to use the (possibly) failing drive as a backup or something like that, but not as a primary storage device.

Yeah, but what's your point? The article was specifically about making the best out of a bad situation - and for that's it valid, especially because an iPod usually only hold a backup of your iTunes lib, not original data - so if that iPod should die eventually, nothing is lost.
No one suggests doing that with your main hard drive, neither me nor the one who posted the article.