I've been a member of both MySpace and Facebook for around two years now, and I've never really had an issue with privacy. I've never felt the need to delete things from either profile because of potential employers, and I don't really understand when people do (this is an entirely different post, so I won't get into my opinion on that here).
As far as unwanted friend requests, MySpace makes it fairly easy to discern whether or not the person requesting your "friendship" is actually your friend or not - just go to their profile. In some cases, it's even easier: if their name is SeXyKiTty and their picture is that of a retarded-looking half-clothed girl, odds are they aren't real, and you don't know them. Same with Facebook, only the people who ask to be your friend are real people...and you can just as easily decline their request.
It seems so simple to me to protect your privacy on these kinds of sites. Don't post information on them that you wouldn't want a stranger to see. Edit the options to make your profile friends-only. Ignore people you don't know. Find and use common sense. Etc.
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You've put your finger on one of the central quandries facing an SN user. On the one hand, you want to put as much information on your pages as possible so you attract others with similar interests and demographics. On the other hand, the more personal info you post, the greater the privacy concerns. This is, of course, an old problem. People have been getting unlisted phone numbers for decades, and faculty regularly ask that pictures and quasi-personal information be removed from departmental publicity. I don't think the battle over information v. privacy will ever be resolved, but it certainly makes for good stories on Fox News!
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