If you buy local from say a big box store you get the pleasure of a drive that's been drop kicked by punks stocking shelves and by twits shopping the store. I just received 5 drives from NewEgg shipped "bare". They came in sleeves of some sort of custom bubble packaging that held the drive snug and had a bubbled flap that capped off the open end. This in turn was placed inside of a cardboard box that tightly held the bubbled thingy and was then placed inside of a larger box and surrounded by their normal cardboard.
I can't say that this is them hearing everyone bitching or not but it was way better than the old bubble wrap, gum tape, and a prayer shipping they used to use about half the time - the other half they shipped in some very nice OEM type packagaing. Seemed a crap shoot but non eo fmy stuff shipped DOA and most of it is on it's 3rd year working...