So you are using a defective drive, one that you know is defective, and complaining about its reliablility, and therefore the reliability of all such drives?

I wasn't using that drive to base my reliability claim on ATA drives, just stating that too many people get a false sense of security with SMART and such. If that drive shouldn't have been setting off SMART alerts months ago, I don't want to see a drive that does trigger an alert.