I don't wear nose plugs and I never really saw anyone wear one in training or a race. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing to wear them. Synchronized swimmers wear them all the time.
People do wear nose clips, and it seems to be a personal preference. I haven't seen any articles on this, and this could be due to the fact that out of thousands racers that I have race against in the last two years I have only seen two people use nose clips.
Yes and your goggles can get torn or kicked off also. Like a said before, there is not many people that I have seen that are using them. If the article you read was online, why don't you post the link to it here. I personally am thinking that the less that you have to worry about going wrong on the swim the better you would be. If you are training without the nose clip now, keep it up and I would think it would be a benefit in the long run.