Okay, I have produced PCB's (Printed Circut Boards for those reading). With the standard DIP package, the pins go through the board, thus limiting what you can place on the other side, and same goes for a double sided PCB usins the same Dip package. Now if you look at the SMD DIP the pins only need to be solderd on the same side of the board that the chip is on, thus leaving no pin pads to prevent the placement of chips on that side of the board. SMD technology also opens up the fact that you can place traces Inside the board to allow even more complex PCBs to be created. As I also stated, the factory puts glue on the bottom of the SMD chip to attach it more securely.

Simply bashing a company because they chose to use SMD technology instead of standard Pin through boards is pathetic, shure it can be cheaply produced. In fact, most companys do it to add more features to their product. Look at the MP3 player market, and cell phones, those two things go through a ton of abuse, and look at them, they use SMD technology. In all my time of dealing with electronics I have never seen a SMD chip pop off the board because of abuse. Don't forget, theres this thing called Quality Control, and in electronics they have to be tested, every chip, every circut board, and every "final product" have to go through a so called "Burn In Test" infact, most of the time it is just that, operating the equipment in ovens and freezers for days on end to weed out the faulty products.