Well I have my 'who cares' password, my 'like this site' password and my 'involves money' password(s). Strangely, my HN password isn't the same one I use for my bank account.
On a more serious note, only one of the two websites compared in these articles is a multi-million dollar business. Also, I'd say HN users are far more likely to use throw away passwords. The "enterprise" clients of 37signals probably subscribe to the philosophy in my satire above.
One final note. I don't think you can log into this site over SSL, so a discussion about password security for HN accounts is just silly. What's the point in worrying about how secure the vault is if the front door is unlocked.
That tool backs up its (encrypted) password db to my Dropbox folder. It also backs up to an iPhone app. So I think the chances of losing all my passwords are pretty slim. And, now, I don't care whether one site loses my password, since all my passwords are unique.
Also, my dropbox is set up on my mac mini too.
In order to lose my passwords, I need to lose, at the same time:
1) my mac mini
2) my macbook pro
3) my iphone
Even then I would be able to recover things somehow, because my email goes through a third-party gateway, and I know the guy who runs it, so if I really do lose everything, I can contact him and ask him to reset my password on that gateway, and then log in to my email via that gateway.
I think the chances of losing my passwords are fairly slim.
For important passwords that I might forget, I apply another easily rememberable transformation, and write them down.
Throw-away password: "ex@mpl3"
Email password: "ex@mpl3p@55"
Finance password: "ex@mpl3p@55w0rd!"