hotplug causing USB device disconnects

Here's something that might be useful to someone:

I've been plagued by sudden USB device disconnects most often when using
wifi devices--and while connected to some network. When that happens
hotplug spawns so many processes that the system runs out of file
handles and the load exceeds 300.

There is no indication of what exactly happens or why. nothing in the
logs, dmesg or anywhere else that I can find. The only things in the log
are messages that the device is disconnected, which is exactly the same
message one gets when hotplug shuts down and disconnects devices.

Out of frustration I tried stopping the hotplug daemon and the problem
stopped occurring.

So, if your devices suddenly disconnect without any apparent reason, try
killing the hotplug daemon, if it is running, and see what happens.

Of course, ymmv still applies.