well i think the user should have the power to decide whether a site should remember him or not. If you prefer being logged in, you can choose to do it.
if gizmodo had not outed him, it could have been successfully sued for theft. Apple considers the phone stolen - an excuse given by powell to obviously save his ass - and had giz not explained the events as to how they got the phone - they would have got screwed. So yeah, everyone makes mistakes - but you've got to learn from them :)