Why does windows formatting take so long?

[Nothinman]

Infant mortaility is certainly a concern. But I wonder how often a one-time initial scan would catch this kind of failure?

Hardly a comparison, drives are much of a PITA to replace =)

And if you'll notice I didn't say "one-time initial scan", I usually run something like bonnie++ to stress the drive for a day or so before putting any data on it.