i hear you. the reality is that many users (if not the majority) have gotten scammed once or twice when they first got involved with bitcoin. nearly instant and irreversible electronic payments = a natural niche for scammers.

but regarding the "One mistake in the sending or receiving address and you're screwed" comment--there is actually a checksum mechanism built into bitcoin addresses that largely prevents that. so if one of the characters is mistyped, the checksum will be invalid and wallets won't allow you to send the transaction.

what happened was a phishing and social engineering attack. that's the most common way to get your bitcoins stolen. as long as you keep your bitcoins in cold storage and are careful about getting socially engineered, you'll no longer be low hanging fruit.