I've always been curious why people so fervently dislike Gibson. I think the most genuine criticism is that Spin-Rite is not a backup solution and people may rely on it as such. Ideally, no one should need it since all data should be replicated and backed up. Any drive can fail at any time for any reason and it may be totally unrecoverable.

[Side Note: He also once claimed in a "testimonial" that a special ops team recovered data off of a hard drive during a mission in which they hit a terrorist with a computer.]

That being said, he produces a free security podcast which is quite good. He knows his stuff.