Principal protected notes

My broker is recommending principal protected notes. I agree with your comments in the recent column on these sorts of investments. A columnist in a summer Business Week issue suggested that anyone considering ppn's and related investments would be able to do the same thing by using a combination of zeroes and mutual funds or indexes. For example, $100,000 would buy you about $80,000 worth of zeroes, and you could invest for possible market appreciation with the remaining $20,000, giving you a small gain for the duration of the zeroes and only a small loss if the market tanks during that period. Do you think this is a practical suggestion or would it be better to go with a fund such as the AC Target ones?

thanks