Okay, I must really be missing something here. If your original database contains a bunch of unsalted SHA1 (or worse, MD5) hashes, what good does securing the

Okay, I must really be missing something here. If your original database contains a bunch of unsalted SHA1 (or worse, MD5) hashes, what good does securing the hashes themselves do if the means to generate the corresponding plaintext has already been released into the wild? Someone please tell me I'm missing something obvious.