Indeed. My philosophy takes it a step further. The thing I dislike about f-lock leaks is the thing I dislike about communication, which is 99.9% unavoidable. I'm friends with friendly people. The transitive closure of my LJ friends is probably very close to the entire LJ userbase, which is to say, well beyond the set of people who'd care about something I said.

So, the only real solution in my mind is to assume EVERYTHING I say might as well be said in front of anyone, and so if I'm going to talk about an acquaintance, I'll make sure I wouldn't mind it being said right to their face.

I might still get misunderstood or misheard or mis-repeated, but good grief people, that's the risk of putting your social shingle out there.