Similar with restoring account access that's been lost for some reason. Certainly, there are good practices and better practices. But somewhere between show up in Cupertino between 10am and 1pm on Friday with these notarized documents and just restoring access because someone requested it in some unverifiable way, there is a large spectrum of tradeoffs.

ADDED: And, indeed for a sufficient threat model, the correct answer if a laptop or phone breaks is to throw it out and get a new one. It would be rather paranoid, but it would be the safest thing.

Personally, I have backups usually so my general attitude would be no password, fine to wipe the device.