Standard response:
Maintaining a firewall that is open by default is a bad idea. Block everything, allow only what you want, from where you want explicitly. If you set things to allow by default, there's nothing to stop an exploited program opening a high port and enabling a non-root remote shell that can then be used for a local exploit. If everything is closed by default, even if a non-root compromise can open a port for the attacker to connect to in an attempt to perform a local root exploit, the port is blocked by the firewall.
Obviously it's not a 100% failsafe defence, but the harder you can make it for the bad guys the better.
2c.