As the author, allow me to address this.

I agree with your statement that sharing passwords between sites is a bad idea. And I don't do it. But I would assert that longer passwords of wider character sets will be harder to crack if a database is compromised--as was the case with LinkedIn. If my password is 8 characters, alphanumeric, it doesn't matter if it's original to that site. If there's a compromise, I'm not going to be in a good place.

Also, my bank doesn't allow for password resets via email. But I would agree that my email account is at the top as well. Fortunately, Google is much smarter about their password rules.