I am not too worried about the recent events themselves, I don't think they display any major flaw in Bitcoin.
The events happened due to a bug in another library, these things will happen eventually. Since bitcoin is software, there WILL be unforseeable bugs, if you know that Bitcoin is a piece of machine code and are using it, you basically accept it already.
But the problem is getting warned about these things as fast as possible.
It seems that a lot of bugs can cause the chain split, as well other events, for example failure to update in time, or simply not hearing some important news.
That's why it is very important that people that are left behind will always get a warning.
It seems that a lot of these problems can be indicated if the software had a warning system for when it sees two different chains available (perhaps longer than X (6? 10? 20?) blocks).
According to some topics, for example LukeJr has a system like this already in place, however it involved external checks made possible by running multiple versions of the client.
What we need is for the standard client to constantly check for this situation and warning the user if it happens. It would be very good as a setting to also make it possible to shut down until manual inspection option, if the situation arises. Since the bitcoin client is integrated with a lot of other software, it would be good to have support for this check even in the jsonrpc-communication which the client supports.
Thoughts?
I agree that fast signalling in case of an error seems like a very good idea. That way merchants won't accept bad payments. The "shutdown until manual inspection" should definitely be optional, otherwise it might become another way to harass merchants and the network.
A similar service outside of the client seems like a good idea too, sending out tweets, emails, text messages (paying service?), etc. when a problem arises.