JW411 I think your last post, in the grand scheme of things, is quite correct. However, this incident does have a certain extreme to it. I can tell you that the aircraft was full of pax, just boarded, PA made to apologise for the delay blah blah blah, and quite frankly, one hell of a jolt was felt throughout the cabin. One cabin crew was nearly knocked over, and serveral pax were quite alarmed and made comment. Agreed perhaps on a laden L1011(your fav and mine!) you may not get the same effect, but a nearly 30tonne Dash got quite a bash. From the point of view of the crew a bad day had just got very worse! From the pax point of view it was shocking, inconvenient and unbelievable. From the de-ice drivers point of view - very unfortunate and untimely (just qualified), from an eyewitness point of view, quite a lot of damage done. It so could have been a lot worse a couple of feet further aft, with pressure bulkheads etc. But this was a truck, as I understand, driving flat onto the side of the aircraft.
I agree most aircraft are a patchwork of re-skinned holes. Let me tell you, this isn't a re-skin of a hole, thats just the temporary repair to fly home, but a complete change of two fuselage skins, four frames and many stringers. And for the nervous of you, it will probably be a sound repair by far.
So yes you have a point, but of greater note, it's great to hear mostly positive support for the unfortunate in this incident. If you had been there, you would understand my sentiment.