Erasing the entire SPI flash is generally stupid, since you store the environment there. You typically also store the initial bootloader and U-Boot.
so the user is stupid if they erase the entire flash ? you could say the same thing about any flash type.
I have valid reasons, better _requirements_, for erasing an entire spi flash and have done so many times. I never realized that I was stupid ... and for all these years! ;-)
Very rarely you want to erase the complete flash ,and a protection mechanism is needed to avoid accidental overwrites. The current solution allows dataflash pages to be protected.
I disagree on some product you use a spi flash to store other code and not nessarely store u-boot in it? (you can have 2 falsh)
OK, let me rephrase the statement: It is stupid to allow the user to *accidently* erase the environment sector and the U-boot area The proposed user interface will do this, if you do not give any address parameters to the erase command.
Best Regards Ulf Samuelsson