Well, LiPos have a soft pouch, so they might not explode as violently. I'd still argue for protection circuit for both though.
The round Li-Ions have been favoured by flashlight enthusiasts because it's easier/cheaper to produce a tube-like flashlight out of aluminium, and we want a metal for heat dissipation with our high power LEDs. For low power stuff, arbitrary plastic shapes are fine, but there we also don't need high power, and the aim is usually cheapness, so both Li-Ion and Li-Po are absent from that.
Someone else here once said that it costs alot more to setup a cylindrical Li-Ion factory than to setup a Li-Po factory, so there are many Li-Po manufacturers out there. This has resulted in wide availability and selection of LiPo batteries offered to the hobbyists that use alot of them, RC.
Some people say that LiPos are more dangerous. Whether that's true, or just a "urban myth" because of LiPos from newly started small Li-Po factory not quite being up to quality, is another question.. I'd definitely use a protection circuit of some sort. In the RC world, there's, I think, maybe 3 different strategies used. Cheapest, use a wristwatch and voltmeter. Set your watch to countdown from 5 minutes. Start it when you take off in your heli or airplane or similar. Land when your watch goes off. Check voltage, if it's very high still, you can increase your flight time for next flight. If it got a bit low, decrease. For $5 extra you can get a buzzer to mount on your RC model, the buzzer goes off at a certain voltage threshold, and you know it's time to land/park/etc... Then we have more advanced stuff, like speed controllers (sits between battery and motor) with programmable cutoffs. When battery voltage drops below a certain threshold, motor power is either cut entirely, or reduced before getting cut. The radio receiver, and the servos are powered "forever", so you can make a engine-out landing with your airplane or heli.
In the flashlight world we've got as wide a range of options with our Li-Ion. Directdrive flashlight, and we can notice the drop in brightness. Maybe. Protected battery, and the batteries cutoff when empty. Intelligent/fancy flashlight and the light itself gives warning signals when battery starts approaching low.
One thing though, outside of hobbyists, in the comercial space, there's always protection circuitry or battery management systems.