Hmm...I got a Barracuda 1.5TB for Christmas, firmware SD17, and never did anything to it. It works fine. I put it in a USB enclosure and threw a bunch of stuff on it. Not sure it's worth attempting the update since it appears to work fine.
Also, I read tons of bad reviews on 7200.11 drives and such, are these MECHANICAL or FIRMWARE issues? A lot of people are saying their drives are being bricked, but if it's just a firmware issue, a new firmware should be able to fix that pretty easily. A mechanical failure would render the entire drive useless and nothing you flash to the firmware would ever recover data. If it's all just firmware issues I don't see what the big deal is, wait for a firmware that fixes the issue and then flash it.