I'm also curious - what is a whole house surge protector? I'd be interested in adding that to our collection of protectors we have - every computer has one - we unplug also. My sewing and embroidery machines also get unplugged. I'm trying to get in the habit of unplugging after every use - which is also good.
We have been lucky that the only time we have been affected by a storm and electronics it only blew out a few things on the tv and the ps3 which were not on protectors and I'm still angry with the husband about that... but both still run fortunately. We just had to change the way they get hooked up.
Losing stuff to a storm is a hard lesson to learn but I think a lot of us have to see it to believe it. protect & unplug when you can.