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Actually, I think that hiding the SSID can be legitimate. I live in a college town where most of my neighbors are college students and a few of them are students who do anything they can to get a free internet connection. When I was first in the neighborhood and broadcasting my SSID with WEP (before WPA2 was available), I could see through my firewall that someone was continually trying to get into my network probably just as they were trying to get through a few of the other nearby networks broadcasting their SSID.
I do think they got through once, but once I hid the SSID, they did quit trying. While I know that they could have kept trying, there were enough other networks for them to try, which was more of a deterrent than just hiding my network was, but it was good for something.
Later I ended up with WPA2 and started broadcasting my SSID again (for my own ease), and the attempts to get in kept up. I also added MAC address filtering just because it made me more comfortable, but the attempts kept coming. I now go back to hiding the SSID and broadcasting it when I get a new device to connect but leave it off otherwise.
The reality is that while it may not do a lot for security, if a potential freeloader (which is what I deal with) is trying to find a network, it helps if they don't know it's there, especially when there are other wireless networks around.
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