When you say power failure, what was the cause? The actual PSU, or an external failure? I assume the latter, in which case was it a total loss of power, or a fusebox blow? IT is quite possible that a power spike was present immediately before the failure, and this can affect electrical appliances badly. In this case, I would think that too much power went to a number of components, leading to failure. Some can absorb this depending on the way it occurs, but storage devices tend to be more vulnerable.
As far as never buying Seagate again- who made the flash drive? Do you intend boycotting them as well?
The fact that they both failed points to power surge, and nothing to do with the brand. Also the recovery price is actually quite reasonable- a lot of places charge a lot more, and at a price per meg as opposed to a complete disk recovery.
As far as prevention goes there are 2 real alternatives. the first (and most expensive) is a UPS- uninterruptible power supply. This is plugged into the mains and then to the computer, and effectively acts a a giant battery. Power is regulated so that it will not cause a power spike (constant voltage) and n the event of a failure, will supply power for a period of time that allows you to save and shut down safely.
The second alternative (cheaper) is a power surge protected socket or extension lead. This plugs into the wall socket, and prevents power surges, but in the event of loss of power, does nothing. Personally I use these for EVERYTHING that uses power in my house- 1 good surge can wipe out a lot more value than the cost of the leads.
As a final note, and I appreciate that it will not help now, but consider using backups. whether its cloud based, external hard drives, DVD, whatever- anything that you want to keep, back up. When it comes to backing up, theres a a simple philosophy- will I cane i fI lose this? If the answer is yes, back it up.