I'm not sure I'd go as far to say its the worst - bare in mind that Apple don't make the drive. IBM went through a phase several years ago which ended up with the Deskstar brand of drive becoming popularly known as the Deathstar. Personally, I lost a 60Gb Deskstar, my parents lost a 20, and I know 3 friends who lost at least 1 each (one guy lost 3 I think).

Apple chose a brand of drive they thought was reliable and I think there has either been a bad batch, or there is something wrong with the architecture which is causing them to fail (Heat? Poor shock protection? Who knows). I know when I ordered my laptop, I had to wait over a month extra for it as the first drive they fitted died (I upgraded the 160gb 5400rpm to a 100Gb 7200rpm).

Hard disks always have and always will fail - they're one of the few remaining moving parts and, inevitably, moving parts WILL fail.

What concerns me is how QUICKLY they're failing!