Surge protectors and power conditioners - Good idea or bad?

@cdc2 ... I live in South Florida where our summer thunderstorms are notorious destroyers of most everything electrical.and the thought of living without surge protectors and power conditioners is mostly terrifying for audio, video, computer and so forth. Fried two Velodyne 12" subs, fried a PS Audio power conditioner, fried two NHT subs and a couple of Blue Ray players. I used Tripplite surge and power conditioners on all my audio and video equipment but lets talk about the stereo system specifically. I upgraded from Tripplite to Audioquest Niagara 3000 in December with all the associated noise draining power cables. I’ll just say it was not an inexpensive upgrade and I’ve got my amps, tuner, CD/SACD, Streamer, DAC and Pre-amp on it. I live in a condo of a 168 unit building and between air-conditioners, fluorescent lights, refrigerators, microwaves, TVs and a ton of other electrical noise pollutants we have a ton of RFI and some EMI here to deal with as well. IOt made a significant difference to the plus side, sweeter more "real human" vocals, better imaging and sound stage layering and quieter black background. In my opinion it was a worthwhile upgrade at the level of resolution my system has. An added benefit is one switch turns everything on or off.  As a friend used to say about audio systems.. 80% of the sound costs 20% of the dollars, the other 20% of performance costs 80% of the dollars. Just my take on it.