I back up only the important stuff, pictures, music, videos, save games, that kind of thing. If anything goes wrong with my OS I just scrap it and reinstall from a disk downloaded from MSDN. Its not hard, only takes about two days from start to running like nothing happened. I hardly ever have to do it, one maybe twice every three years. I have all my software saved on a 2 TB External drive, with all the SP. I never even have to let it get on the web till I install my Steam games and messengers. Though like I said, I rarely do it.
One, I am not an expert, and never have I said I am. I am good at what I do. Second, I know enough not to not need any recovory system with a bunch of bloat ware and crap ware cramed in it. The recovory system is the first thing I delete when I get a new system. I install from a Windows install disk. No HP or Dell homo helper software crap. I choose what I want on my system at all times, and nothing more goes on it. As long as I have my important non-replaceable files backed up, the rest can be reinstalled. Yea it takes time, but I dont get paid or run the risk of getting fired from my home life. If this was work computer we where talking about then it would be a completely differnt story.