I posted the below comment on @barrydutton's post about this new story, and would also like to get thoughts from those reading this post:
Are there release notes associated with each Geth release and, if so, did they make it clear that the 1.5.9 release would mandate the 0x hexadecimal prefix?
Not being anywhere near an ETH or smart contract expert, I'm wondering whether this is truly a knock against Ethereum, Geth, and/or the GO programming language?
Similar to how the Mt. Gox fiasco wasn't truly a knock against the Bitcoin protocol or its blockchain.
Or how, a centralized online wallet or exchange that gets hacked or otherwise does some bone-headed thing isn't necessarily a knock against the cryptocurrency that may be affected by it.
I know there are smart Steemians here that will chime in about this ...