Surge protectors and power conditioners - Good idea or bad?

I live in Miami Beach.  I live in a newer house (2015).  We get lightning and storms all the time in the summer and a lightning strike blew my preamp and I had to send it in for repairs.  I then put a whole house surge protector in at the breaker panel and no more problems.  A cheap insurance policy to protect your equipment!

Whole home surge protectors are noting but a bunch of big MOVs across line/neutral/ground, or in Europe, MOVs and gas discharge tubes. There is absolutely nothing they are going to do to hurt sound, but they sure may save your equipment. Everything you have plugged into the line will affect the line more than these things will. 

Blah, Blah, Blah.... Big Storm: Unplug your Stuff.. problem solved.

Reportedly, 80% of all surges/transients in a home's electrical system are generated by appliances in the home. Anything with a motor is suspect. I believe that continuous "hits" with surges and transients will shorten the life of the equipment. If you value your equipment, consider the protection offered by a good series-mode suppressor. Reasonably-priced units are available from Zero Surge, Brickwall and SurgeX with audiophile versions (Audioquest Niagra, Furman Elite PFi, etc.) with power correction (energy reserve) technology for those who are concerned about dynamic current limiting with big power-hungry amps.
 

I've read all sorts of opinions here. My experience protecting equipment.
1st cause of equipment failure during electrical storms, lightning and such is induced currents due to proximity discharges, even on shielded twisted pair, the electrical transient will go through equipment, mainly low voltage one, computer's network cards, you could install surge suppressors and isolators grounded and such, these will protect to some extent but if the transient is fast it will still go through even with grounded surge suppressors. Ethernet networks are a magnet for these and will propagate to computers, switches, wireless access points, TV etc.
You will also get these currents in the mains but equipment in the mains is more resistent to these currents

Now if the lighting is close enough the transient will be high enough and will fry anything connected to the mains as well.

I have lived 51 years in the tropics (south Florida) and I know what lightning storms are.

The industrial solution to really protect (I have installed and build in communication centers and shelters for the government) the ones with big radio antennas going up 1000 ft up, is to use batteries and an ALL AROUND DC 48V datacenter fed by batteries and surge suppression on every step or in the private sector AC datacenters with equipment fed by batteries and inverters too.

At your house if you hear distant thunder unplug all valuable equipment from the mains that's the real protection.
If you are leaving the house for a few days and there is always a chance of sudden electrical storm leave unplugged all valuable equipment from the mains.
There is no better protection

Say what you want I don't care