Not to rain on Steve's SSD parade, but do realize that SSDs are in their infancy and can have some major glitches like any new technology. Keep a backup of the original drive handy just in case you run into problems. SSD fixes can take weeks, even months.
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/238065/intel_to_issue_bug_fix_for_ssd_320_drives_in_two_weeks.html
Not to worry, my parade even has ticker tape, elephants, and shriners in tiny cars.
SSD's aren't quite in their "infancy", though I suppose it depends on your perspective. And "major" glitches are another matter of perspective. Pay attention to any drive manufacturer, motherboards, CPU's, chipsets, well.. anything to do with computers.. and televisions, cars, washing machines, and hair dryers.. and yes.. there are "glitches" of all types.
I think you'll find them less frequent than most major computer parts. Take the one you posted for instance. It was so rare Intel themselves had a hard time replicating it. It happened during a certain sequence of events following a power outage. It also was totally correctable by using Intels free toolbox and would have the drive back in operation in minutes, though you did need to restore your drive from your backup image. SO it wasn't like you were stuck without a drive for months. If you were unlucky enough for the stars to line up and hit your drive, you simply fixed it with their tool kit, restored, and got back to the business of using your computer.
The nice thing about this, is Intel has been right on top of it. Hard drives that have such issues (and they have many more just due to there's a lot more of them out there, many more models, more numbers, etc) rarely get such attention. They quietly get new revisions sent out to the stores, RMA's issued, and users take it in stride, perhaps writing off a certain brand for a while. Crucial C300's for instance are on their 7th firmware revision. I have three of them. I didn't lose a single days use from either one of them.
But if you're trying to say that SSD's are so new they have all these issues making them some sort of major risk, or more of a risk than mechanical drives.. then no, that wouldn't be the case at all. SSD's are as reliable as any other computer component you're likely to use in an average system. HOWEVER your advice is solid: ALWAYS keep a backup image of your system drive. Always keep a backup image of all your data. In fact, several. Keep some off-site too. It's a known fact computer components fail.