Those conclusions are invalid for many reasons.  The most obvious one: assumptions are devoid of numbers.  No numbers is a first indication of junk science reasoning.

First:
1) Turn it off?  Will a millimeter gap in a switch stop what three kilometers of sky could not?  Of course not.

  2)  Turning it off only disconnects one wire.  Other AC wires remain connected - also destructive surge paths.

3)  Fuse takes tens of millisconds or longer to trip.  Surges do damage in microseconds.  Easily, 300 consecutive surges could pass through a fuse before it even thought about blowing.

4) Surges are a current source.  That means voltage will increase as necessary to blow through any blocking device.  An open switch or fuse may claim 250 volts.  That means a surge simply increases voltages above 250 volts to conduct (blow) through that switch or fuse.

  Nothing stops a surge even though advertising wants all to promote that protection myth.  Any device that claims to stop a surge is bogus - a profit center.  Furthermore humans rarely are avaiable to disconnect or turn off anything. (8 hours sleeping, 8 hours working, 2 hours doing body maintenance, etc).  Disconnecting depends are a very unreliable actor - the human.  Furthermore surges even do damage before anyone knows a storm is approaching.  And that includes other surge sources such as stray cars, utility switching, and pesky rodents.

Second:  Disconnecting means everything must be disconnecxted.  That includes the air conditioner, all clocks, refrigerator, and the most important devices during a surge - smoke detectors.

Third:  An operating voltage is completely different from what devices can withstand without damage.  Phone may operate at -48 volts or lower.  But phones long have been designed to withstand up to 600 volts transients without damage ... for longer than anyone here has even existed.

  Ethernet has tens of times lower operating voltages.  And also must withstand up to 2000 volt transients without damage.  Do not confuse operating voltages with other voltages.

  Previously provided was a datasheet for an interface chips - single digit voltage signals - and also withstand up to 15,000 volts.

Fourth:  A thermal fuse disconnects protector parts as fast as possible.  To avert a house fire. An emergency device to only protect human life.  Thermal fuse leaves a surge connected to appliances.  Some only assume that maybe 1 amp thermal fuse does appliance protection.  It doesn't.  A blown fuse is the homeowner's last warning that his protecxtor was grossly undersized and a potential house fire.

Finally: for over 100 years, there has been no alternative to this well proven concept.  Protection is about diverting surge currents to earth on a path that does not enter the bulding.  Either hundreds of thousands of joules dissipate harmlessly outside. Or that current goes hunting for earth destructively via appliances ... no matter what magic device or disconnecting tries to stop it.  Those other techniques and protector are only for systems that first properly earth a surge current BEFORE it can enter a structure.

Protetion is always about and performed by earth ground.

What other option do you have besides whole house protection? Yes its the simplest solution and the most effective one, but will it be viable to everyone living in apartments?

  HDMI failure is a perfect example of a surge current that is both incoming and outgoing via the appliance.  A common incoming path is AC mains.  Since TV cable is often properly earthe,d, then a best outgoing path is via that HDMI port and somehow to cable.  First a surge current is everywhere in a path from the cloud, through a TV, and out via cable to distant charges.  Later a weakest point in that path fails.  A most common 'weakest point' is the outgoing path -  HDMI ports.

from my personal experience I got a couple of cordless phones fried by lightning presumably through telephone line, or could be from high voltage surge through tenaga power line, now no more lightning problem after installing lightning isolation devices at both telephone line and power line

Whole house single point or point-of-use surge protection?

Those conclusions are invalid for many reasons.  The most obvious one: assumptions are devoid of numbers.  No numbers is a first indication of junk science reasoning.

First:
1) Turn it off?  Will a millimeter gap in a switch stop what three kilometers of sky could not?  Of course not.

  2)  Turning it off only disconnects one wire.  Other AC wires remain connected - also destructive surge paths.

3)  Fuse takes tens of millisconds or longer to trip.  Surges do damage in microseconds.  Easily, 300 consecutive surges could pass through a fuse before it even thought about blowing.

4) Surges are a current source.  That means voltage will increase as necessary to blow through any blocking device.  An open switch or fuse may claim 250 volts.  That means a surge simply increases voltages above 250 volts to conduct (blow) through that switch or fuse.

  Nothing stops a surge even though advertising wants all to promote that protection myth.  Any device that claims to stop a surge is bogus - a profit center.  Furthermore humans rarely are avaiable to disconnect or turn off anything. (8 hours sleeping, 8 hours working, 2 hours doing body maintenance, etc).  Disconnecting depends are a very unreliable actor - the human.  Furthermore surges even do damage before anyone knows a storm is approaching.  And that includes other surge sources such as stray cars, utility switching, and pesky rodents.

Second:  Disconnecting means everything must be disconnecxted.  That includes the air conditioner, all clocks, refrigerator, and the most important devices during a surge - smoke detectors.

Third:  An operating voltage is completely different from what devices can withstand without damage.  Phone may operate at -48 volts or lower.  But phones long have been designed to withstand up to 600 volts transients without damage ... for longer than anyone here has even existed.

  Ethernet has tens of times lower operating voltages.  And also must withstand up to 2000 volt transients without damage.  Do not confuse operating voltages with other voltages.

  Previously provided was a datasheet for an interface chips - single digit voltage signals - and also withstand up to 15,000 volts.

Fourth:  A thermal fuse disconnects protector parts as fast as possible.  To avert a house fire. An emergency device to only protect human life.  Thermal fuse leaves a surge connected to appliances.  Some only assume that maybe 1 amp thermal fuse does appliance protection.  It doesn't.  A blown fuse is the homeowner's last warning that his protecxtor was grossly undersized and a potential house fire.

Do not confuse a thermal fuse with another and completely different fuse - the line fuse or circuit breaker.

Finally: for over 100 years, there has been no alternative to this well proven concept.  Protection is about diverting surge currents to earth on a path that does not enter the bulding.  Either hundreds of thousands of joules dissipate harmlessly outside. Or that current goes hunting for earth destructively via appliances ... no matter what magic device or disconnecting tries to stop it.  Those other techniques and protector are only for systems that first properly earth a surge current BEFORE it can enter a structure.

Protetion is always about and performed by earth ground.

niceeeee.... voltage increase to compensate current to blow through a fuse or switch.

you go westom. explain to these little b****es us the proper way to insulate our house from those damned lightning strike surges. we need more guidance from you.

I dont think the under 3 meter length is possible tho for most apartments, thats why you need point-at-use protectors.

Again, a main power panel for each apartment may have its own 'less than 3 meter' earth ground by bonding to an adjacent I-beam.  But again, this would be unique to that building.  And made obvious by inspection.  Other options also were described.

A point of use protector does not necessarily add protection as demonstrated by posted manufacturer spec numbers.  Often inferior to protection already inside appliances.  In some cases, it has made appliance damage easier (ie bypassing protection already inside the appliance).  And can be so undersized as to, in rare cases, cause a fire.

  Better than a point of use protector without a 'whole house' protector IS just using the appliance.  Then superior protection is not compromised by an adjacent protector.

  A 'plug-in' protector does not claim to  protect from a typically destructive surge.  Obviously - no earth ground.  And still many recommend it only because it is called a protector.

Provided are no facts or numbers that say a Belkin or Cal-Lab provides protection,   Where is the Belkin numeric spec that claims protection?  Never provided.

  We traced surges through equipment because a protector (too close to appliance and without earth ground) earthed a surge destructively through the computer.  We literally traced that surge path by replacing each semiconductor in that surge path.  Completely restored the hardware.  And made it woefully obvious to naysayers that an adjacent protector compromised protection inside that computer.

  Without a 'whole house' solution, a plug-in protector creates additional problems.  Even manufacturer specifications do not claim protection that others have only assumed.

Never said plug-ins provide full protection, they were meant for precaution. if destructive lightning surge earthed at main entrance before entering individual units of apartments, what is the chance of big surges entering the units? only Small surges,  the COMMON ones.

Numbers were provided for destructive surges.  Maybe one every seven years.  A number that can vary significantly even in the same town.

  Correct. You did not say a Belkin provides full protection.  But I said a Belkin or Cal-Lab can even compromise (bypass) existing and superior protection. May even create less protection.  A problem even described in an IEEE paper.

  What maybe should be taken more serously?  Static electric discharges.

http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lhm/IEEE_Guide.pdf

an interesting read on lightning protection in easy to read plain english

according to above IEEE paper, plug-in protector+building earth does work in protecting home appliances! Tenaga and telekom lightning protection system do not provide 100% lightning protection to home appliances
check out this forum, the same westom?
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2334015

who is this ieee fella? must be some bogus commercial institution selling fake products. the paper must be a sales brochure.
must not be trusted this ieee fella. must place trust in westom.

must trust some random guy posting some random jargon in some random internet forum. better than trusting this ieee fella.
it's on the internet, i.e. it must be true.

Some plug-in protectors offers feature that whole house protector do not,  such as sustained overvoltage/ undervoltage protection.

One of the main functions of the service entrance SPD is to reduce the surge current reaching any downstream protectors.

There are three requirements of the service entrance SPD. They are as follows:
1) To suppress the larger surges from the outside environment to levels that would not be damaging to equipment at the service entrance, or to equipment (air conditioning, wired-in appliances) directly connected to the branch circuits.
2) To reduce the surge current to the downstream SPDs (including multiport SPDs).
3) To stop the large lightning currents from passing into the house wiring system and damaging the wiring or inducing large voltages that would damage electronic equipment.

Lightning cannot be prevented; it can only be intercepted or diverted to a path which will, if well designed and constructed, not result in damage.  Even this means is not positive, providing only 99.5-99.9% protection.

try out yourself what surge protection scheme is working best for you and stick with it

And again, a claim without spec numbers.  How many volts is sustained overvoltage/undervoltage?  All appliances also feature sustained overvoltage/undervoltage protection well beyond what most will see.

  For example, an overvoltage that causes incandescent bulbs to fail twice as fast is ideal voltage for all electronics.  An undervoltage that causes incandescent bulbs to dim to 50% intensity is normal voltage for all electronics.  What is this sustained voltage that causes damage?

  What is that plug-in protector protecting?  An attached appliance or only itself?  Making such claims ALWAYS requires spec numbers.

  Lightningsafety.com shows how to use 'whole house' protectors and plug-in protectors as part of a 'system'.  And makes some important points.  A protection 'system' is defined by the one always required 'system' component - earth ground.  A plug-in protector does not make the earth ground connection.  The 'system' does not work without a 'whole house' protector to make that connection to earth.  On page 22:
  Required is to accomplish these three functions that no plug-in protector can do; only the 'whole house' protector can do:

A plug-in protector without a 'whole house' protector is ineffective - accomplishes near zero protection. And IEEE paper notes that a plug-in protector without a 'whole house' protector can even make appliance damage easier.

IEEE even provides numbers for what the 'whole house' and plug-in protetors do:  A plug-in protector adds maybe 0.2% protection - and only if a 'whole house' protector exists and is properly earthed.  The above quote even notes a plug-in protector must be protected by an earthed 'whole house' protector.