Even if every pool were DDOS'd and they all broke, permanently even, so what? It doesn't affect Bitcoin, pools are just a way to make mining give you money more immediately. (not faster, as there's a slight fee and theoretically the amount of time it takes you to get 50 BTC with a pool is the average amount of time it would have taken you to get a block by yourself)
Bitcoin doesn't rely on pools, pools rely on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin doesn't rely on pools, pools rely on Bitcoin.
Well, statistically, at 1 gh/s, I will never hit a block mining, (assuming 30% difficulty increases forever). So a pool does pay me faster, because I should earn about 20 BTC from a pool in the next infinity (again, assuming constant 30% difficulty increases).
As an extension of what DamienBlack was saying, how many miners would solo mine at todays difficult? If pools ceased to exist, what percentage of miners would stop mining?
Just look at the "other" section on Bitcoin Watch
But, to the point of the OP, this is in no means Bitcoin failing. Individual pools may have failed, but interestingly enough, the network adapts. One pool goes offline, people move to others. The more diversified our network is, the strong it is.