It happened twice that way. Wow landing in 25G31 is just insane in a 172. I try to exercise better judgement now when i comes to winds. A friend of mine scraped his wing tip on his 172 landing in a 12 kts gusty x wind, so now he is more cautious too.
Mike, let me preface this by saying that the "you's" below are ambiguous and not directed at you specifically. I sincerely hope that you, your friend, and Steve all continue flying.
It's not bad judgement if you can do it - And the plane certainly is more than capable. I wouldn't go much higher, but the plane will do it if the pilot tells the plane the right things to do. It's really not difficult - You do the same things as you do with a 5-knot wind, you just do them more. Bad judgement is when you're not properly handling the airplane on approach and you elect to land rather than going around (unless you're on your last gallon of fuel, which means even worse judgement) and you bend an airplane.
I don't have a specific number for a personal minimum on this sort of thing - It depends on the rest of the situation. 25G31 is high, but the gust factor is relatively low. OTOH, when I'd listened to the ATIS and heard OK winds but when a gust front arrived and controller said "Winds now at MSN are xxx at 19G47"... Well, that's a no-brainer. I'm outta here!
I really should have gone flying yesterday. Winds were 19020G29, so starting on 21 and transitioning to 14 would have made for a great practice opportunity. Oh well.
And scraping the wingtip on a HIGH wing??? Looking at the dimensions of a Cessna 172, you'd need around a 25-degree bank. If you're banking 25 degrees in the flare, it means one of two things: If the upwind wingtip hit, they were overcorrecting (someone smarter than I will have to figure out the exact crosswind velocity needed to need a 25-degree wind correction, but it's significant!) If the downwind wingtip hit, they weren't correcting.
I feel like a jerk for saying all this, but somebody's gotta (there have been many in FlashChat). If you can't handle a 10-knot crosswind, you need to go get some dual. Personal minimums can be less than that if you want, but you should be able to handle more than your personal minimums because as we all know, weather does funny things. And frankly, 10 knots is not very much wind, and the airplane is most certainly capable of it. One person here has even done a 45-knot crosswind in a castering-nosewheel airplane.
So please... If you can't handle a 15-knot crosswind, please get some dual until you can. You don't have to be comfortable with it, you don't have to do it on your own, but please make sure that if you get in a pickle that you are at least capable of doing it. Bent airplanes raise everyone's insurance rates and allow the media yet another opportunity to sensationalize these "dangerous little planes."