HDV/DV Dropouts are like the dust and scratched film of our time? (you can discuss other formats in this thread as well.)

You could be right... and for those who think that HDV will be a short-lived format, maybe future versions of FCP and Premiere might feature plug-ins to simulate dropouts, like the current dirt and scratch simulations ;-)

I've hardly had any noticeable dropouts since I switched from DV to HDV recording, and to me the HDV dropouts are less irritating. In DV I regularly got lost frames with dramatic blocky artifacts and a terrible sound glitch; in HDV the image dims or blacks out for a moment and then comes back up as if the camera suffered an autoexposure glitch. Either way that bit of footage is unusable and that's why I almost always have a second camera running for anything important. Plus it doesn't cost too much these days to buy a DTE recorder so you can make a duplicate master copy while HDV tape is rolling, and that should eliminate most dropout issues for most people.

The big dust and dirt issue of our time is on the lens, not the recording medium.

In the future, there will be a Final Cut Pro version 42 that will include a video filter designed to simulate the HDV dropouts of ye olden tymes. Holographic chat rooms will be ablaze with the arguments for and against the use of such filters in achieving that elusive "antique high definition video" look.

Back in my network TV days during the film era, I had a wonderful boss named Russ Bensley at CBS news. There was particularly annoying editor whom he referred to as a "hair in the gate of life."