I remember my account was locked out completely even though I never did anything. Tried all passwords I knew, but of course you only get limited attempts (Why?

I remember my account was locked out completely even though I never did anything. Tried all passwords I knew, but of course you only get limited attempts (Why? If I'm using a brute-forceable password I'm already screwed, I'd rather have unlimited attempts to guess my complex password). I went through all the hoops to get a One-Time Password or whatever it was, tried it on all machines I own, no luck. That's when I decided it wasn't worth it to entrust all of my passwords to an opaque entity like that, it's not ideal, but it's better than losing access to everything I use.