What I think is odd is the apparent SO hate on #1. That sounds like a good idea to me - to better understand what SQL injection is and how to find and plug vuln

What I think is odd is the apparent SO hate on #1. That sounds like a good idea to me - to better understand what SQL injection is and how to find and plug vulnerabilities, try to write your own vulnerable application and then exploit it. At least, I'd much rather have them do that then copy and paste generic code off of some learning site which is vulnerable without even thinking about it.