Honestly, we probably should be grateful that this was the first big scare. It was a huge outbreak, but at the same time a very visible and relatively benign worm.
Exactly. Compared with what organised crime, nation states, political organisations, special interest groups and some shady companies are doing with hacking, manipulation, worms, and botnets nowadays this is pretty benign. A helpful wakeup call to everyone to take security more seriously, in fact.