Best way to back-up/reinstall OS - to clone or not to clone

If in doubt, do both. I've never had an issue with time machine.

A clone would probably be your best option given your misgivings about Time Machine.

I've had to restore a machine from TM twice (one dead MacBook and one Mini HDD replacement) and it has worked perfectly on both occasions.

I used SuperDuper (free trial) when switching over my HDD. Had no issues since intall 8 months ago (although I did have to do it twice, not sure what went wrong the first time but machine wouldn't boot)

Many here advocate clean install of OS from recovery mode/internet then copy data manually.

I tend to fiddle with a lot of hard drives. My MP has an SSD for Mavericks, a backup HDD clone and a Snow Leopard one (for old time sakes). My new MBP came with a 500GB HDD. I replaced that with a 750GB HDD and one week later with an SSD. The new mini came with a 1TB HDD that was also replaced with an SSD.

Through all of that drive swapping all of the upgrades and backup clones have been done using the latest Carbon Copy Cloner. CCC has had zero problems creating bootable drives either on SSDs or HDDs.

scottsjack said:

Through all of that drive swapping all of the upgrades and backup clones have been done using the latest Carbon Copy Cloner. CCC has had zero problems creating bootable drives either on SSDs or HDDs.

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My experience with CCC are the same as scottsjack above.
I have licensed copies of both CCC and SuperDuper but prefer to use CCC due to its ease of use and 1 or 2 extra features.