Yes, for once I agreed with Nechayev. Picard's job was to safeguard the lives of Federation citizens. It doesn't matter if it would eventually fail, he still should have tried.
As for Hugh's individuality being a more powerful weapon against the Borg. Yeah, that worked out real well. And are you going to tell me that everybody who had been assimilated up to that point had not possessed individuality? The whole concept of the Borg is that they conquer individuality easily.