Will I win anything?

First, for the record, I know that dws knows why firewalls are a good thing, but I have no idea whether he's using one. I suspect he is, but I have no proof either way.

Let's take your electrical wiring example. While it is true that for installing wires you should have someone who knows what they are doing, consumer electrical products do not need an electrition. For instance most people expect to be able to change their own lightbulbs. And that expectation generally works out OK, but doesn't.

The same should apply in computing. But doesn't because we don't hold manufacturers of consumer computing products liable for the damage caused by malfunctions. (So they're engineered for convenience, not for safety.) The result is that, as you say, if you put a machine on the internet, it gets owned pretty fast. Generally if you put up a firewall and a machine, it gets owned more slowly, but that isn't perfect. And if you really want to be safe, you need it monitored by a sysadmin who is tracking exploits and reacting to them appropriately.

In fact the last personal computer sold which really could safely be directly put on the internet by consumers was Mac OS 9. (The security record of OS 9 was significantly better than OpenBSD. OS 10 is OK as far as Unix systems go, but nothing compared to OS 9.)

Anyways the fact is that personal webservers on the internet tend to be set up, a firewall often is put in front of it, and then they are not monitored very well. I agree that this is not ideal. However if people really want to have something for personal use, I don't think that it is unreasonable either.

I keep my personal machine behind a firewall that nobody can reach. It is moderately irritating to not have my own server to put stuff on, but I know that I wouldn't use it much if I had one out there. If I was going to put something online, then I'd be likely to go with OpenBSD because it comes the closest to my ideal of putting something up and forgetting about it.

Others have different needs. (Obviously so, or else you'd see a lot more OpenBSD facing the internet and less Linux.)

Cheers,
Ben