Possibly, but as I mentioned I ran a 300ma constant current Luxeon LED with well over 5 amp pulses through 10,000 cycles without a failure. And Mims device worked for at least several years at his last report with 1+ amp pulses on a standard 20ma LED.
It is up to the user/designer to decide what tradeoffs they are willing to make.
The only real downside is a destroyed low value component in this case. With certain situations, and certain devices it is worthwhile to always stick to those rules of thumb that hobbyists pick up; however, an LED switched by a MOSFET is not likely to fall into that case where there is any real danger beyond destroying a couple of LEDs.