I can't really even understand what the defect is - what kind of projects does it affect? I'm only interested in fairly basic applications of the rpi but I don't have the technical chops to know if I'm setting myself up for failure...
This happens on all microcontrollers btw. Random charge accumulates and pushes the voltage on your pin to some arbitrary point. The way you fix this normally is by providing a path for that charge to escape in the form of a pull-down resistor. Usually you need something in the 100k range. Because of this bug you need something more in the 5k range.
For some circuits that's fine, for others it's more problematic.
Many microcontrollers provide an internal, selectable pull-up or pull-down resistor (or neither). For example, on the STM32, it's a 30-50k, and individually selectable on a per-pin basis:
https://www.keil.com/dd/docs/datashts/st/stm32f10xxx.pdf#G11...
It's normal for pins to float, it's not normal for them to both lack an internal bias option and to float to a condition where they source significant current. You don't typically put a very low impedance external pull-down resistor on every single input pin.
That's not how it works; input does not mean sink current. An OUTPUT low sinks current, and an output high sources current.
In a "normal" microcontroller (with no silicon bugs), an input pin is in a high-impedance state ("Hi-Z"), meaning it doesn't sink or source current -- but it can be configured to have an internal pull-up or pull-down resistor, in which case it will (respectively) source or sink a little bit of current, enough to keep it at high or low voltage (i.e., enough for a logical high or low) unless there's something else driving it.
The problem with the RP2350 is that (under some circumstances) there's a current leakage between the pin and the voltage rail, so when a pin is configured as input with a pull-down resistor, the voltage will not go down to the low level it needs to read a logical low as expected: it will be at around 2.2V, which is in the "undefined" region.