That may be appropriate advice for the corporate world, but
Saab,
Whilst I agree with your point that self-supporting users should be left to stew in their own swamp, it's not like Mike was trying to tell them they should be applying a domain-wide group policy to block the offending items.
In this instance, I think it is correct to educate the unwashed masses that editing the hosts file can lead to unintended consequences at some point in the future and that there are indeed perhaps other, more appropriate means, to reach the desired goal of blocking the offending banner ads that are well within the budgetary and technical reach of the lowly home user.