Surge protectors and power conditioners - Good idea or bad?

Of course there was the time we had a close strike which blew out every LED display in our house, including some wireless thermometers that were battery powered. Blew out everything connected to a phone line too, but not the TV, or other electrical appliances.

Which was also around the time my sailboat got hit by lighting too, and blew holes in the boat as well as the flashlight bulbs. Somehow the my kids thought I was attracting lighting so when ever a storm blew in they'd try not to be near me.

Whole house surge protection is a good idea. I also use isolation transformers for expensive electronics. Trouble is that IT can hum when doing their job, so it's best to have them in a utility room.

The only real surge suppression is putting a transformer between the gear and the wall.  Transformer's breaker blows up in a massive overload, gear doesn't. 

I just replaced my Richard Gray Custom 1200 due to wanting to rid my system of surge suppression chokes etc and will install a Seimens FS140 whole house surge suppressor at the breaker panel. He will also be installing ground rods. And grounding the Satellite Dish.

I replaced the Gray with a P.I. Audio UberBuss power conditioner that has a power factor correction of 1 and unlimited current availability while cleaning up the noise leaving no impact on the sound. Just clean power as needed.

Unless you live in an area which is frequented by lightning strikes or your power company executives are crooks, they are not needed.