So instead of relying on iTunes for backups you rely on... no backups?
You might want to reread what I wrote, because I think you missed the first part.
The only time I back up through iTunes is just prior to upgrading firmware--and that's essentially as a backup of a backup, since, as I said, my critical data is backed up elsewhere,
using reliable sync setups built in to the apps I primarily use. This makes a regular iTunes backup mostly unnecessary. It's convenient to have a one click way of restoring, but when it fails--and yes, iTunes backups can and do fail--I'm not stuck trying to replace lost data or media. I use iTunes only after making sure I've synced to everything else AND made an additional copy of certain things via PhoneView.
Paranoid? Hell, yes. iTunes lets me down routinely, and did so well prior to jailbreaking. But even if it didn't, anyone who has spent any time in tech with a disaster recovery team knows that putting all your data in one place is stupid. Hard drives fail. Computers are stolen. Cloud servers are hacked or a disaster hits a server farm. It happens.
(And yes, because of that, the cloud based backups that contain vital info, such as contacts, are also backed up in more than one place. Those aren't necessarily PC free, because having a local cache of your data is also important--for me, most data is stored on both the iPhone and iPad, plus on two local hard drives and in at least one location in the cloud. I'm sure I'll use iCloud for some stuff, but it will never be the whole solution for me, and I believe it shouldn't be for anyone. At the very least, copy that backed up data to another cloud--Dropbox, Amazon, etc.)